History and General Information
The Party was founded 1982, originally named Movimento Ecologista Português - Partido "Os Verdes", by a group of Portuguese citizens interested in the promotion of the ecologist movement in the Portuguese society and the support of the Portuguese Communist Party and including in its founders one of its members, Zita Seabra.
In the end of the 1970s, the World was facing new ecological problems, such as the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer and the lack of awareness of this in Portuguese society, along with the lack of an organized Ecologist movement led to the foundation of the Ecologist Party "The Greens" in order to put such problems on the political agenda.
The Party created regional groups right after its foundation, groups that have continued to grow since then. The growth of the Party throughout the country allowed many members to integrate the electoral lists of the CDU, some being elected to very different tasks. Currently (as of 2005), The PEV has several members elected in Municipal Assemblies and Parish Assemblies and two members elected in the Assembly of the Republic (Portuguese parliament). Those two members are Heloísa Apolónia and Francisco Madeira Lopes.
There is widespread criticism on its close ties to the Communist Party, given that PEV never stood in elections on its own, those criticisms going to the point of nicknaming PEV "The Watermelons - Greens Outside, Reds Inside". The fact is official positions of both parties in certain questions are quite different: for example, PCP supports nuclear energy, while PEV is against.
The PEV is also present in the National Electoral Commission and also in the National Council of Education.
The youth wing of the Party is the Ecolojovem, founded in 1989, which is a founding member of the Federation of Young European Greens.
The PEV edits a newspaper, the Folha Verde (Green Leaf), which received several press prizes for its unique design and style.
Read more about this topic: Ecologist Party "The Greens"
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