Initiative for Catalonia Greens

Initiative for Catalonia – Greens (Iniciativa per Catalunya – Verds, ICV) is a political party in Catalonia, Spain. It was formed as a merger of Iniciativa per Catalunya and Els Verds. IC had been an alliance led by Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya and was the referrent of Izquierda Unida in Catalonia. IC later developed into a political party, and PSUC was dissolved.

The youth of ICV is called Joves d’Esquerra Verda (Green Left Youth). It used to be called JambI, Joves amb Iniciativa (Youth of the Initiative).

In the elections to the European Parliament in 2004 ICV ran on the Izquierda Unida list. One MEP, Raül Romeva, was elected from ICV which joined the Green Group.

The ICV forms part of the tripartite coalition (along with the Catalan Socialist Party – PSC and the ERC, a left-wing Catalan Nationalist Party). The coalition has governed Catalonia since the 2004 General Election. ICV was given responsibility for the Ministry of the Environment in the share-out of power in the new government. However, ICV has already angered many of its voters by failing to scrap the outgoing administration's plans to build the Bracons tunnel through an area of outstanding nature beauty. The latest scandal to damage ICV's "green" credentials involves a scheme to build a massive incinerator 1 in the village of Sant Pere de Torelló. Some 90,000 metric tonnes of unsorted industrial waste would be burnt at the plant, giving rise to high dioxin and furane emissions. The village mayor's financial and political interests in the scheme and his close links with the ICV-run Ministry of the Environment (responsible for deciding if the plant should go ahead in the teeth of local opposition) have further dented the Party's credibility, threatening to widen existing rifts in the coalition government. See also: List of political parties in Catalonia

External link

• Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds web site (in Catalan)
• table of the electoral results of the ICV (in Catalan)
• Raül Romeva