They pledged to build "a more tolerant, social, ecological and democratic" European Union, to jointly campaign to phase out nuclear energy and reject the introduction of genetically modified foods.

The new grouping, "The European Green Party", brings together 25 individual parties from 22 of the 25 countries that will make up the EU after its enlargement on May 1 -- the exceptions being Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia.

Environmental parties from seven countries that will not be part of the enlarged EU -- Bulgaria, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Russia, Switzerland and Ukraine -- are also members of the new group.

The symbolic union of the ecologists took place in the same hall of the Rome Capitol where the founding act of the European Economic Community was signed in 1957.

The new party aims to greatly enlarge the Green presence in the parliament, which holds monthly assemblies in Strasbourg, France. At present, there are 36 Greens in the 626-seat parliament, to whom are allied 10 members from regional parties.

With the formation of the new grouping, "we will try to get everyone on the same rhythm, with the same campaign and a common look," said Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the co-president.

Although he said some of the party's personalities would campaign across Europe, the reality is that few Greens are as well-known outside their own borders as German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

"The aim is to have a group similar to the last one in the European parliament, to stabilise, with 45-50 seats," said Cohn-Bendit.

But the party now boasts one prime minister -- Latvian ecologist Indulis Emsis.

In a continent that stretches from the icy forests of northern Finland to the near desert of southern Spain, finding a common publicity approach proved impossible. The parties will therefore have a common logo and slogan -- to be announced on March 4 -- but publicity material will change from country to country to reflect the local environment.

Fischer, who attended the new organizations's congress here on Friday and Saturday, said it was "the first party to think in European terms."

He said he hoped the Greens would join more and more governments "so that we can make progress on environmental issues, but also on employment issues. The two must be balanced."

The Greens have a strong power base in Germany and Austria, but are marginal in many EU countries. The hope was that the new party will raise the ecologists' profile across the continent.

"The market is acting internationally, and so should politics too," said Osmo Soininvaara, leader of the Finnish Green League. "If we remain separate in national states, we cannot handle and guide the powerful market forces."

In their election manifesto, the Greens said they would press for radical changes in the EU's Common Agriculture Policy to place the emphasis on regional food products and rural development. They pledged to reduce taxes on labor and increase them on pollution.

The Greens say they have already helped make the EU a world leader in combating climate change. But they argue that much deeper reforms, including radical changes in transportation networks, are necessary to prevent increasingly hot summers amid global warming and devastating floods.

TERRA.WIRE