Ecolo

Name

Ecolo is officially a backronym for Écologistes Confédérés pour l'organisation de luttes originales "Confederated Ecologists for the Organisation of Original Struggles", but is really just short for écologistes, French for environmentalists.

History

Ecolo's origins can be traced to the 1970s. In 1971 Paul Lannoye left the Walloon 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 for popular initiatives and an economy which prioritises satisfying people's basic needs and self-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 as Friends of the Earth's sections in France and the 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 in Namur, scoring 1.9 percent of the vote.

Multiple ecology lists contested the 1977 and 1978 Belgian general elections in Wallonia. In 1979 the Europe-Ecologie list contested the 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 a Europe of the Regions, referendums, a green economy, Third World solidarity, nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from NATO. It scored 5.1 percent in the French-speaking electoral college, including 7.7 percent in the arrondissement of Namur and 22 percent in the Canton of St. Vith.

Ecolo was established as a permanent party in March 1980. Although several other ecological lists contested the 1981 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 in Liège Province, three won seats in Namur, and one each gained seats in Hainaut Province and Luxembourg.

The following year the party won 7.1 percent and 75 seats in municipal elections. The party won six seats on Liège 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 eleven schepen and commitments to increasing public participation, incorporating quality of life concerns into urban planning, divestment from nuclear power and ending political 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.

Political views

Ecolo is a political party that promotes sustainable development policies, aimed at preserving the environment and combating climate 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 of participatory democracy.

Electoral positioning

During the 2019 election campaign, the RePresent research centre — composed of political scientists from five universities (UAntwerpen, KU Leuven, VUB, UCLouvain and ULB) — 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.

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).

The RePresent centre repeated the exercise during the 2024 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).

Election results

Elected politicians

Current

European Parliament

Philippe Lamberts

Saskia Bricmont

Chamber of Representatives

2010 – 2014:

Ronny Balcaen

Juliette Boulet

Olivier Deleuze (resigned in 2012; replaced by Lahssaini Fouad)

Zoé Genot

Muriel Gerkens

Georges Gilkinet

Eric Jadot

Thérèse Snoy et d'Oppuers

Brussels-Capital Region Parlement

2009 – 2014:

Aziz Albishari

Dominique Braeckman

Jean-Claude Defosse

Céline Delforge

Anne Dirix

Anne Herscovici

Zakia Khattabi

Vincent Lurquin

Alain Maron

Jacques Morel

Ahmed Mouhssin

Marie Nagy

Yaron Pesztat

Past

European Parliament

1989 – 1994

Brigitte Ernst de la Greate

Chamber of Representatives

1995 – 1999:

Philippe Dallons

Olivier Deleuze

Thierry Detienne

Mylène Nys (20 April 1999) (replaced Vincent Decroly)

Martine Schüttringer

Jean-Pierre Viseur

1999 – 2003:

Marie-Thérèse Coenen

Martine Dardenne

Vincent Decroly

Olivier Deleuze → Zoé Genot (14 July 1999)

Thierry Detienne → Muriel Gerkens (23 July 1999)

Claudine Drion

Michèle Gilkinet

Mirella Minne

Géraldine Pelzer-Salandra

Paul Timmermans → Bernard Baille (1 September 2002)

Jean-Pierre Viseur → Gérard Gobert (10 January 2001)

2003–2007:

Zoé Genot (replaced Olivier Deleuze)

Important figures

José Daras

Josy Dubié

Isabelle Durant

Muriel Gerkens

Evelyne Huytebroeck

Jacky Morael

Patrick Dupriez

Zakia Khattabi

Jean-Marc Nollet

Hélène Ryckmans

Tom Zoete