Green party environmental significance. The first green party in Europe was the Popular Movement for the Environment, founded in 1972 in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. The first national green party in Europe was PEOPLE, founded in Britain in February 1973, which eventually turned into the Ecology Party, and then the Green Party. Several other local political groups were founded in beginning of the 1970s and Fons Sprangers was probably the first Green mayor in the world, elected in 1970 in Meer, and active until 2006 for the Flemish Greens. The first political party to use the name "Green" seems to have
Ecology Party Election, entitling them to radio and television election broadcasts. Though many considered this a gamble, the plan, encouraged by Porritt, worked, as the Party received 39,918 votes (an average of 1.5%) and membership jumped tenfold from around 500 to 5,000 or more. This, Derek Wall notes, meant that the Ecology Party "became the fourth Party in UK politics, ahead of the National Front and Socialist Unity". Following this electoral success, the party introduced annual spring conferences to accompany autumn conferences, and a process of building up a large compendium of policies began, culminated in today’s "Policies for a Sustainable Society"