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The Estonian Green Party is a political party and follower of the political activity of Estonian Green Movement (EGM), which was formed in 1988 during a massive movement against the Soviet Union's plans to start exploitation of huge phosphorite deposits on North-Eastern part of Estonia. EMG was one of the first independent political popular movement in Estonia under Soviet rule. It was internationally recognized and became a full member of Friends of the Earth in 1989. However, EGM also registered the same year as a political party and played a key role in the political process that led to the gradual sovereignty of this Baltic Republic during the late 1980s and finally to full independence in August 1991. Also in 1989, EGM became a member of the Coordination of the European Green Parties.
A split occurred in August 1989, when members wanting more political activities formed the independent Estonian Green Party (EGP). This weakened the EGM who, despite this, got eight MPs out of 105 in the first multi-party election to the Estonian Supreme Council in 1990. One of their deputies, former Soviet high-rank official Mr. Arnold Rüütel, was after elections nominated to the post of Chairman of High Supreme Council (equal to the Speaker of Parliament). The chairman of Estonian Greens, Mr. Toomas Frey, became the first Environment Minister in the World appointed by Green Party. A number of Greens were also elected to local governments.
The Greens did, however, lose ground when independence movements gave way to emerging major political parties, modeled after their Western European counterparts. In the 1992 general elections, the Greens were only able to scrape 2.6% of the vote and one deputy to the 101-strong Riigikogu (Parliament).
The party Estonian Greens (EG) was formally registered in March 1992 (precessor EGM was registered as party on 20.09.1989) after merger of EGM political wing and EGP. It had approximately 250 members and 3 regional branches. In January 1995, the party's annual congress elected Dr Jüri Martin as chairman of the Estonian Greens. In the March 1995 elections, the Greens achieved only 0.8 % of the votes and did not get any seats in parliament (there is a 5% threshold). Despite such electoral failure, the Greens gained an average of about 3% in the public opinion polls. After changes in the Act on NGOs, political parties were supposed to re-register for the 1 October 1998 deadline, under the condition that they have at least 1000 members. Because the Greens did not pass that threshold, party registration was cancelled, and the EG were no longer eligible to run in the elections. The Party closing Congress decided to continue as a NGO until the threshold is reached. To the elections in 1999 Greens "borrowed" their members to the list of Centre Party, but none of their candidates passed individual threshold. Local branches of EG operated in Tallinn, Pärnu and Sillamäe, total number of members was 60. 4 party members were active in local councils.
The Estonian Greens did not run in the 2003 national elections, at last local elections on 20th October 2002 only one Estonian Greens member gained a seat: Mr.Mati Nappus at Saue Town Municipality.
Estonian Greens Today
After joining the EU on May 2004 along the elections to the EU Parliament, EG in collaboration with variety of environmental groups was supporting individual green candidate to the EP Mr. Marek Strandberg who was able to gather 5340 (2,3% of total) votes. On basis of that success of green candidate, on May 2005 EG started membership recruitment campaign and launched registered NGO (Initiative for Re-registration of EG). Campaign attracted attention and by November 2006 more than 1000 members were recruited. Green Party was re-established on November 25th 2006 and party was re-registered by Court on December 6th, 2006.Today EG have about 1500 members. Despite short campaigning period, National elections in 2007, turned out success for greens and EG was able to re-enter to the Paliament with 6 deputies from 101 seats. Though greens were invited to the government formation talks by winner Reform party and government program includes significant portion of green's goals, EG was left out from three-party coalition and sits in parliament in opposition benches.
Main issues addressed by EG are energy efficiency, new environmentally sound technologies and democratic decision-making process as well ensuring sustainability of the society.
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