Green Party

Political party aiming to ‘preserve the planet and its people’, based on the premise that continual economic growth is unsustainable. The leaderless party structure reflects a general commitment to decentralization. Green parties sprang up in Western Europe in the 1970s and in Eastern Europe from 1988. Parties in different countries are linked to one another but unaffiliated with any pressure group.

A show of concern for the environment has increasingly been adopted by mainstream politics in Europe and the USA, making the Greens a less effective separate force. In Germany, the Green Party is the country's third-largest force and has been represented in the Bundestag since 1983. In the USA, the consumer-rights campaigner Ralph Nader was the Green Party's presidential candidate in 1996. The Greens won 22 seats in the European Parliament's 1994 election.