contact persons
party profile
current government
election information

Parliamentary group

CHAMBRE
ECOLO - Maison des Parlementaires
Rue de Louvain, 21, B-1008 Brussels
ecolo.chambre@ecolo.be

SENATE
ECOLO- Maison des Parlementaires
Rue de Louvain 21, 21 B-1009 Brussels
ecolo.senat@ecolo.be

Members in the European Parliament

party profile

ECOLO is the Green party of French speaking Belgium (Groen! is its sister party in Flanders). Ecolo was founded in March 1980. It contested parliamentary elections for the first time in 1981 and obtained 5% of the votes and 5 seats - 2 in the House of Representatives and 3 in the Senate. To our knowledge, it was the first time in the world that Green representatives entered a parliament at the national level.

Recent years have seen a steady increase in support for the party. Our best scores were obtained in the European elections of 1989 (16,7%) and in 1999 (22,7%).The national elections of June 1999 were a big success for the Belgian Greens as well, placing ECOLO as the second largest party in the Brussels region (18,3 %) and the third largest in the Walloon region (18,2%) (after the Socialists and the Liberals). Our parliamentary representation in all assemblies has doubled.
At the local level, the last municipal elections (2000) gave ECOLO 466 (186 in '94) local councillor seats (doubled in the Walloon region, tripled in Brussels), along with participation in the executive in 30 municipalities, including several in the Brussels Region.

This success is certainly due to ECOLO's capacity to behave in politics in a different way - and to communicate about it - which means being transparent, open and informative. Thus, a few weeks before entering government, ECOLO committed itself to "govern differently" by making a public pledge to the citizens regarding its practices as a party and the practices of its possible ministers. To implement this pledge in the daily affairs of its governmental participation, ECOLO produced an information tool on the political actions of its elected representatives at all levels of power: the "Dashboard" (www.ecolo.be/tdb). The aim of this innovative tool is twofold; on the one hand, to democratise political activity by constituting a source of information, sort of collective memory accessible to all in real time; on the other hand, fine tune a rigorous and an as objective as possible tool which allows, at the end of the legislative term, to evaluate all the political activities led and to make them accountable to society as a whole.

Furthermore, the ability to address issues such as the economic, social and environmental crises in a global and creative way, without forgetting the situation of the Southern hemisphere, are also key elements that differentiate ECOLO from traditional political formations.

First considered a purely environmentalist movement, ECOLO progressively became a generalist party, as shown by its last legislative programme (which includes more than 1800 concrete proposals for change in every sector of Belgian society, from agriculture to culture, from education to the elderly). This programme was written after a two-year open process of discussion with the most creative and progressive sectors of civil society, called "Les Etats généraux de l'écologie politique". This exercise in participative democracy, initiated in 1996, not only provided many concrete proposals for change in various sectors, but also allowed for many partnerships with experts, trade unions and other groups within civil society. In 2 years, 80 topics gathered over 8,500 participants. It was, also, a way to attract many new members and sympathisers, some of which have now been elected on ECOLO's lists. In the follow up of the "Etats Généraux de l'Ecologie Politique", ECOLO has set up "Evaluations Thématiques" (an evaluation of 30 public policies such as immigration, health, mobility, …). They stem from rigorously gathered information shared by all the partners in the assessments (the "dashboard" is one such source of information), with members of civil society taking part. Thus, they illustrate an effective application of the "dashboard", on the one hand, and they feed and prepare the end of legislature conclusions, on the other. Finally these "evaluations" are an opportunity for political and civil actors to meet. The lesson of this experience is that other meetings and alliances of this sort (between ECOLO and civil society at large) should see the light.

Another reason for our electoral success is that the former majority parties - the Socialists and the Christian Democrats - due to their conservative character, were not able to respond to the electorate's pressure for change in several areas such as the dioxin crisis which arose just before the 1999 elections.

It was in this context that ECOLO and Groen! entered the federal and regional governments alongside the Liberals and the Socialists, after hard negotiations ... and some compromises. Because of these compromises, the agreement to enter the executive was supported only by 60% of the members taking part in Ecolo's extraordinary general assembly in July 1999. The members, however, rejected governmental participation in the Brussels region, where ECOLO remained in opposition.

In May 2003 the general elections were catastrophic for ECOLO who lost more than half of its voters. From 18.3% of the votes in French-speaking Belgium, ECOLO only returned between 7 and 8%. This clear defeat can be explained by several factors including poor communication and an appearance of being torn and indecisive. Undoubtedly ECOLO was mainly victim of the political disenchantment following the huge expectations and hope that were placed on it by the citizens after the dioxine and the infamous paedophile scandals that shook the country in 1998 and 1999.

The 2004 European elections were coupled with the regional elections in Belgium. In our extremely federal country, regional elections are of great political significance.

The results were somewhat disappointing. In Wallonia Ecolo (re)gained 1% with regards to 2003. However, the complex seat attributing system only allowed the greens to return 3 regional Mps (from 14 in 1999). Furthermore with less votes than Ecolo (8.5%), the fascist Front National (8.1%) returned 4 MPs, 3 more than in 1999.
In Brussels the results were even less convincing, a largely advertised duel between the leader of the Socialist Party and the Liberal (conservative) Party penalised the smaller contenders. With just over 8% of the votes, Ecolo lost 1% with regard to our 2003 result and returned only 7 Mps (from 14 in 1999). There was a good result for Ecolo in the small German-speaking community where it was possible to hold on to, with just over 8%, 2 of the 3 seats in the regional parliament.
In the European elections, the results were better. Ecolo gained 1.5% on the 2003 results but, with 9.8% is still much below the 1999 level of 21.5%. We lose 2 seats, and retain 1.

In view of the results, it can therefore be surprising that Ecolo is participating in the Brussels regional government, with Evelyne Huytebroeck as Minister of the Environment and Christos Doulkeridis President of the CoCof. The new majority (Socialist and Christian democrats) at the regional level needed Ecolo to set up a majority in Brussels. This leaves the Liberal (conservatives) in the minority, with the fascist parties.

A final word has to be said about the continual growth of fascist parties. In Flanders, the Vlaams Blok has become, dismayingly, the second party. In French speaking Belgium, where extremist parties never really found fertile ground, the spectacular growth of the Front National is more than worrying. In cities such as Charleroi, with over 16%, the FN has become the second party…

Last but not least, the loss in seats and ministers meant great financial difficulties for years. After losing one third of Ecolo personnel in 2003, another third left before the end of 2004. The whole structure of the party was reoganised in view of making the best of what we had left, and of course counting even more on local, grass roots militancy.

Fortunately, the local and provincial elections in 2006 already showed a strong return of Green votes, and greens are now in several local governments. Our (very popular) co-president Jean-Michel Javaux is mayor of Amay, Ecolo reaching a score close to absolute majority. We are also in the Brabant Wallon province government (with the MR (liberals)).

The results of the federal elections in 2007 strengthened the party. Ecolo had 14% of votes in Brussels, and an average of 12.5% in Wallonia. This allowed to double the number of MPs, now 8, and to form a group in the House, together with Groen ! We also have 5 senators. This means new public financing for the party. We engaged personnel in the federal and regional structures, allowing for a better political work and more visibility. We are working on maintaining these results in the 2009 regional and European elections.

 current government

 election information

Next National Elections: 2011

Latest Green Party Election Results:

National Election Year: 2007
MPs: 8 (and 5 senators)
Total No. National Votes: 340.378
% Gained: 5 (in Wallonia: 12.6)

European Elections: 2004
MEPs: 1
Total No. European Votes: 239.574
% Gained: 3,7 (in Wallonia: 9,84)