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Ecolo | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Leader | Marie Lecocq [fr] andSamuel Cogolati |
| Founded | 1980; 46 years ago (1980) |
| Headquarters | Espace Kegeljan Av. de Marlagne 52,Namur |
| Think tank | Centre d'études Jacky Morael[1] |
| Ideology | Green politics[2][3] |
| Political position | Centre-left toleft-wing[4][5] |
| Regional affiliation | Socialists, Greens and Democrats[6] |
| European affiliation | European Green Party |
| European Parliament group | The Greens–European Free Alliance |
| International affiliation | Global Greens |
| Flemish counterpart | Groen |
| Colours | Green |
| Chamber of Representatives (French-speaking seats) | 3 / 61 |
| Senate (French-speaking seats) | 5 / 24 |
| Parliament of Wallonia | 12 / 75 |
| Parliament of the French Community | 16 / 94 |
| Brussels Parliament (French-speaking seats) | 15 / 72 |
| Parliament of the German-speaking Community | 3 / 25 |
| European Parliament (French-speaking seats) | 1 / 8 |
| Website | |
| ecolo.be | |
Ecolo (French pronunciation:[ekɔlo]), officiallyÉcologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales ([ekɔlɔʒistkɔ̃fedeʁepuʁlɔʁɡanizasjɔ̃dəlytɔʁiʒinal],lit. 'Confederate Ecologists for the Organisation of Original Struggles') is aFrench-speakingpolitical party in Belgium based ongreen politics.[2][3][7] The party is active inWallonia and theBrussels-Capital Region.
Ecolo's Flemish equivalent isGroen; the two parties maintain close relations with each other.
Ecolo is officially abackronym forÉcologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales "Confederated Ecologists for the Organisation of Original Struggles", but is really just short forécologistes, French forenvironmentalists.
Ecolo's origins can be traced to the 1970s. In 1971Paul Lannoye left theWalloon Rally to found the party Démocratie Nouvelle (DN). DN's 1973 manifesto called for a decentralised form of federalism in Belgium with a major role forpopular initiatives and an economy which prioritises satisfying people's basic needs andself-cultivation over unnecessary and environmentally damaging consumption, themes which formed a major part of Ecolo's message during the first half of the 1980s. In the mid-1970s DN members made contact with environmentalists in Wallonia, as well asFriends of the Earth's sections inFrance andthe United States, leading to the establishment of a Belgian section of the movement in 1976. DN formed an electoral list,Combat Pour l'Ecologie et l'Autogestion, to contest that year's local elections inNamur, scoring 1.9 percent of the vote.[8]
Multiple ecology lists contested the1977 and1978 Belgian general elections in Wallonia. In 1979 the Europe-Ecologie list contestedthe first European Parliament elections in Francophone Belgium, with Lannoye at its head and 13 of the 17 candidates being Friends of the Earth members. The list's platform advocated aEurope of the Regions, referendums, agreen economy,Third World solidarity,nuclear disarmament and withdrawal fromNATO. It scored 5.1 percent in theFrench-speaking electoral college, including 7.7 percent in thearrondissement of Namur and 22 percent in theCanton of St. Vith.[9]
Ecolo was established as a permanent party in March 1980. Although several other ecological lists contested the1981 Belgian general election in Wallonia, Ecolo was the only one to contest all constituencies across French-speaking Belgium. It achieved 5.9 percent and 3.1 percent of the vote in Wallonia and the Brussels region respectively, electing two Representatives and three Senators, whilst in the concurrent provincial elections four councillors were elected inLiège Province, three won seats in Namur, and one each gained seats inHainaut Province andLuxembourg.[10]
The following year the party won 7.1 percent and 75 seats in municipal elections.[11] The party won six seats onLiège city council, holding the balance of power between the left and right alliances. They made a coalition agreement with the left, securing three of the council's elevenschepen and commitments to increasingpublic participation, incorporatingquality of life concerns intourban planning,divestment from nuclear power and endingpolitical patronage. Whilst some gains were made regarding participation and nuclear divestment, other policies were thwarted by the city's parlous financial state and the council's lack of power compared to the national government and private developers.[12]
In the1984 European elections, Ecolo achieved 9.9 percent in the Francophone electoral college and electedFrançois Roelants du Vivier as an MEP. In the1985 Belgian general election the party scored 6.5 percent in Wallonia, increasing their number of Representatives to five and maintaining their share of Senate seats.[13]
Despite this electoral success, tensions within the party spilled out into the open in 1986 after a motion proposed by Lannoye to professionalise the party executive was voted down, resulting in him and two allies withdrawing their candidacies for the executive. The same year Ecolo RepresentativeOlivier Deleuze resigned his parliamentary seat and party membership alongside two senior party officials after the party executive voted in favour of a proposal put forward by Lannoye for Ecolo members of theWalloon Regional Council to vote in support ofLiberal Reformist Party colleagues on specific issues in exchange for support from the latter for some Ecolo proposals. Some members objected to the proposal as it involved cooperation with a party of the right, whilst others felt that Lannoye and his allies has strong-armed the executive into voting for the motion. The situation was resolved when the executive voted to approve Lannoye's professionalisation proposal, he was re-elected to the executive, and the Liberals rejected Ecolo's cooperation proposal. However, a spate of resignations from the party among elected representatives caused financial problems, as the vast majority of the party's budget came from public funding including taking a cut of elected officials' salaries.[14]
Although the party scored the same share of the vote in the1987 Belgian general election as in the 1985 federal election, they lost two Representatives whilst retaining their three Senate seats.[15]
Ecolo was part of the 1999Verhofstadt I Government, but withdrew from the coalition before the 2003 general election, which saw it lose nearly two thirds of its 14 federal parliamentary seats in the face of a resurgentSocialist Party. The party made quite a comeback, however, in the 2007 general election, though failing to match the peak popularity it had enjoyed in 1999. In thegeneral election of 10 June 2007, the party won eight out of 150 seats in theChamber of Representatives and two out of the 40 directly elected seats in theSenate.
In the2010 elections, the party again won eight seats in the Chamber of Representatives and two in the Senate.[16]
Ecolo is a political party that promotessustainable development policies, aimed at preserving theenvironment and combatingclimate change, in the interests of current and future generations. The party seeks to create a more democratic and inclusive society by encouraging new political practices and strengthening citizen participation in a model ofparticipatory democracy.[17]
During the2019 election campaign, the RePresent research centre — composed of political scientists from five universities (UAntwerpen,KU Leuven,VUB,UCLouvain andULB)[18][19] — studied the electoral programmes of Belgium's thirteen main political parties. This study classified the parties on two "left-right" axes, from "-5" (extreme left) to "5" (extreme right): a "classic" socio-economic axis, which refers to state intervention in the economic process and the degree to which the state should ensure social equality, and a socio-cultural axis, which refers to a divide articulated around an identity-based opposition on themes such as immigration, Europe, crime, the environment, emancipation, etc.[19]
Ecolo then presented a programme marked on the left on the socio-economic level (−3.87), and close to the extreme left on the socio-cultural level (−4.37).[19][20]
The RePresent centre repeated the exercise during the2024 election campaign for the twelve main parties. Ecolo's positioning changed little on the socio-economic axis (−3.81), and it became the most left-wing party on the socio-cultural axis (−4.62).[5]
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977[21] | 3,834 | 0.1 | 0 / 212 |  0 | Extra-parliamentary |
| 1978[22] | 21,224 | 0.4 | 0 / 212 | 0 | Extra-parliamentary |
| 1981[23] | 132,312 | 2.2 | 2 / 212 |  2 | Opposition |
| 1985[24] | 152,483 | 2.5 | 5 / 212 | 3 | Opposition |
| 1987[25] | 157,988 | 2.6 | 3 / 212 |  2 | Opposition |
| 1991[26] | 312,624 | 5.1 | 10 / 212 | 7 | Opposition |
| 1995[27] | 243,362 | 4.0 | 6 / 150 | 4 | Opposition |
| 1999[28] | 457,281 | 7.4 | 11 / 150 | 5 | Coalition |
| 2003[29] | 201,118 | 3.1 | 4 / 150 | 7 | Opposition |
| 2007[30] | 340,378 | 5.1 | 8 / 150 | 4 | Opposition |
| 2010[31] | 313,047 | 4.8 | 8 / 150 | 0 | Opposition |
| 2014[32] | 222,524 | 3.3 | 6 / 150 | 2 | Opposition |
| 2019[33] | 416,452 | 6.1 | 13 / 150 | 7 | External support(2020) |
| Coalition(2020–2025) | |||||
| 2024 | 204,438 | 2.9 | 3 / 150 | 10 | Opposition |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977[34] | 7,558 | 0.1 | 0 / 106 | |
| 1978[35] | 43,883 | 0.8 | 0 / 106 | |
| 1981[36] | 153,989 | 2.6 | 3 / 106 | 3 |
| 1985[37] | 163,361 | 2.7 | 2 / 106 | 1 |
| 1987[38] | 168,491 | 2.8 | 2 / 106 | |
| 1991[39] | 323,683 | 5.3 | 6 / 106 | 4 |
| 1995[40] | 258,635 | 4.3 | 2 / 40 | 4 |
| 1999[41] | 458,658 | 7.4 | 3 / 40 | 1 |
| 2003[42] | 208,868 | 3.2 | 1 / 40 | 2 |
| 2007 | 385,466 | 5.8 | 2 / 40 | 1 |
| 2010 | 353,111 | 5.5 | 2 / 40 | 0 |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F.E.C. | Overall | |||||
| 1989 | 44,874 | 10.2 (#5) | 8 / 75 | Opposition | ||
| 1995 | 37,308 | 9.0 (#4) | 7 / 75 | 1 | Opposition | |
| 1999 | 77,969 | 21.3 (#2) | 18.3 (#2) | 14 / 75 | 7 | Opposition |
| 2004 | 37,908 | 9.7 (#4) | 8.3 (#4) | 7 / 89 | 1 | Coalition |
| 2009 | 82,663 | 20.2 (#3) | 17.9 (#3) | 16 / 89 | 9 | Coalition |
| 2014 | 41,368 | 10.1 (#5) | 8.9 (#5) | 8 / 89 | 8 | Opposition |
| 2019 | 74,246 | 19.1 (#2) | 16.2 (#2) | 15 / 89 | 7 | Coalition |
| 2024 | 38,386 | 9.85 (#5) | #5 | 7 / 89 | 8 | Opposition |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 5,897 | 15.0 (#5) | 4 / 25 | Opposition | |
| 1995 | 5,128 | 13.9 (#4) | 3 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| 1999 | 4,694 | 12.7 (#5) | 3 / 25 | 0 | Coalition |
| 2004 | 2,972 | 8.2 (#5) | 2 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2009 | 4,310 | 11.5 (#5) | 3 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2014 | 3,591 | 9.5 (#6) | 2 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2019 | 4,902 | 12.5 (#5) | 3 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| 2024 | 3,644 | 9.1 (#6) | 2 / 25 | 1 | Opposition |
| Election | Votes | % | Seats | +/- | Government |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 196,988 | 10.4 (#4) | 8 / 75 | Opposition | |
| 1999 | 347,225 | 18.2 (#3) | 14 / 75 | 6 | Coalition |
| 2004 | 167,916 | 8.5 (#4) | 3 / 75 | 11 | Opposition |
| 2009 | 372,067 | 18.5 (#3) | 14 / 75 | 11 | Coalition |
| 2014 | 141,813 | 8.6 (#4) | 4 / 75 | 10 | Opposition |
| 2019 | 294,631 | 14.5 (#3) | 12 / 75 | 8 | Coalition |
| 2024 | 144,189 | 7.0 (#5) | 5 / 75 | 7 | Opposition |
| Election | List leader | Votes | % | Seats | +/− | EP Group | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F.E.C. | G.E.C. | F.E.C. | G.E.C. | Overall | |||||
| 1979 | Paul Lannoye(F.E.C.) | 107,833 | N/a | 5.14 (#5) | N/a | 1.98 | 0 / 24 | New | − |
| 1984 | François Roelants du Vivier(F.E.C.) | 220,663 | N/a | 9.85 (#4) | N/a | 3.86 | 1 / 24 | 1 | RBW |
| 1989 | Paul Lannoye(F.E.C.) | 371,053 | N/a | 16.56 (#4) | N/a | 6.29 | 2 / 24 | 1 | G |
| 1994 | Paul Lannoye(F.E.C.) Unclear(G.E.C.) | 290,859 | 5,714 | 13.02 (#4) | 14.90 (#4) | 4.97 | 1 / 25 | 1 | |
| 1999 | Paul Lannoye(F.E.C.) Didier Cremer(G.E.C.) | 525,316 | 6,276 | 22.70 (#3) | 17.01 (#3) | 8.59 | 3 / 25 | 2 | Greens/EFA |
| 2004 | Pierre Jonckheer(F.E.C.) Lambert Jaegers(G.E.C.) | 239,687 | 3,880 | 9.84 (#4) | 10.49 (#4) | 3.75 | 1 / 24 | 2 | |
| 2009 | Isabelle Durant(F.E.C.) Claudia Niessen(G.E.C.) | 562,081 | 6,025 | 22.88 (#3) | 15.58 (#3) | 8.64 | 2 / 22 | 1 | |
| 2014 | Philippe Lamberts(F.E.C.) Erwin Schöpges(G.E.C.) | 285,196 | 6,429 | 11.69 (#3) | 16.66 (#2) | 4.36 | 1 / 21 | 1 | |
| 2019 | Philippe Lamberts(F.E.C.) Shqiprim Thaqi(G.E.C.) | 485,655 | 6,675 | 19.91 (#2) | 16.37 (#2) | 7.31 | 2 / 21 | 1 | |
| 2024 | Saskia Bricmont(F.E.C.) Shqiprim Thaqi(G.E.C.) | 259,745 | 4,819 | 10.06 (#5) | 11.10 (#6) | 3.71 | 1 / 22 | 1 | |
European Parliament
Chamber of Representatives
Brussels-Capital Region Parlement
European Parliament
Chamber of Representatives
Brussels-Capital Region Parlement
