Groen!
Groen! is the Flemish Green party in Belgium.
Founded in 1981 as Agalev, the party has always maintained good relations with its Francophone sister party, Ecolo. The name "Agalev" is short for "Anders GAan LEVen" ("going to live differently"). It was part of Guy Verhofstadt's outgoing coalition (1999-2003), but lost all its seats in the federal parliament mainly to SP.a-Spirit cartel in the May 18, 2003, elections. Agalev remains, however, in the Flemish parliament.
In June 2003, the party gave permission to local divisions to form cartels with other parties, more specifically SP.a, which had already formed a cartel with Spirit. On November 14, 2003, Vera Dua replaced Dirk Holemans as the party president, a post which Agalev until then called "political secretary".
The next day, during the party congress, Agalev's name was changed to Groen! (Green!). Though Agalev-Limburg voted in favor of a cartel with SP.a, the party congress did not approve of it. Agelev-Brussels voted against a cartel. Other local divisions did not vote on whether to form a cartel with SP.a. Groen! is thus expected to go to the regional and communal elections as an independent party.
