Greens (South Tyrol)


The Greens are a regionalist, green political party active in South Tyrol, northern Italy. Once the provincial section of the Federation of the Greens, the party is now autonomous and often forms different alliances at the country-level, but both joined Green Europe, a coalition of green parties for the 2019 European Parliament election.
The Greens are ethnically mixed and strive to improve the relations between the three language groups of the Province: Italian-, German- and Ladin-speakers. Since 2017 the party has been led by spokespersons Tobias Planer and Brigitte Foppa.

History

The Greens have their roots in the New Left and the environmental movements of the 1970s. They started to compete in elections in 1978, but were formally registered as a party only in 1996. From 1978 to 1996 they used different names: New Left, Alternative List, Green Alternative List and finally Greens. One of the founders and most active members of the Greens was Alexander Langer, who committed suicide in 1995.
Other than in the Landtag of South Tyrol, the party was successively represented in the European Parliament by Langer and mountaineer Reinhold Messner.
In the 2003 provincial election the party obtained 7.9% of the vote and three provincial councillors: Cristina Kury, Sepp Kusstatscher and Hans Heiss.
In the 2004 European Parliament election, the Greens won 13.1% of the vote in the Province, their best result ever, and sent Kusstatscher to the European Parliament, replacing Messner.
In the 2008 provincial election the Greens won only the 5.8% of the vote, losing votes and one seat from 2003. The two elected Green councillors were Heiss and Riccardo Dello Sbarba, who succeeded to Kusstatscher.
In the 2013 general election the Greens did not follow the national party into the Civil Revolution alliance and decided instead to support Left Ecology Freedom, which included Green Florian Kronbichler in its slate. Kronbichler was the first German-speaking South Tyrolean to be elected in a list different from SVP's.
In the 2013 provincial election the Greens won 8.7% of the vote, their record high in a provincial election, and sent three elects to the Provincial Council: Heiss, Dello Sbarba and Brigitte Foppa.
In the 2014 European Parliament election the Greens supported The Other Europe, an electoral alliance launched by Italian Left and other left-wing parties, but its candidate Oktavia Brugger was not elected. In the 2015 municipal election in Merano, the second-largest South Tyrolean city, Green Paul Rösch was elected mayor with 60.7% of the vote in the run-off: it was the first time that the Greens were to win a large municipality.
In the 2018 general election Kronbichler did not stand again and the Greens continued to join forces with SI within the Free and Equal electoral list, with Norbert Lantschner as its standard-bearer. Lantschner was not elected and the Greens lost their representation in Parliament.
In the 2018 provincial election the Greens won 6.8% of the vote and again sent three elected to the Provincial Council.
In the run-up to the 2019 European Parliament election the Greens joined the Green Europe electoral list, with Norbert Lantschner as their candidate.
In November 2019 the party became a full member of the European Green Party.

Popular support

The Greens won 8.7% of the vote in the most recent provincial election in 2013. They obtained their highest shares in five small municipalities: Urtijëi, Bronzolo, Montan, Auer and Glurns. Despite this, the party was usually stronger in cities than in rural areas: it did well in the three largest cities, while it did worse in the four most rural districts – Vinschgau, Salten-Schlern, Pustertal and Wipptal – and in Ladin municipalities.
Previous elections showed similar patterns of the vote.
The electoral results of the Greens in South Tyrol since 1992 are shown in the table below.
1987 general1988 provinc.1989 European1992 general1993 provinc.1994 general1994 European1996 general1998 provinc.1999 European2001 general
4.26.77.46.95.48.95.46.56.75.57.9

Provincial Council

Leadership

Spokesperson: Carlo Bertorelle, Leander Moroder, Franco Bernard, Sepp Kusstatscher and Brigitte Foppa, Giorgio Zanvettor and Brigitte Foppa, Hans Heiss and Brigitte Foppa, Tobias Planer and Brigitte Foppa