Editing Green League (section)

=== Founding ===
The Green League was founded on 28 February 1987 and was registered as a political party the next year. <!--(In Finland 5.000 signatures are needed to register a new party).-->Political activity had begun already in the early 1980s, when [[environmentalist|environmental activists]], [[feminist]]s, disillusioned young politicians from the marginalized [[Liberals (Finland)|Liberal People's Party]] and other active groups began to campaign on green issues in Finland. In 1995, it was the first [[Europe]]an green party to be part of a state-level [[Cabinet (government)|cabinet]].

The party was founded as a popular movement, which explains its name's descriptor, ''liitto'', "league". Initially, there was much resistance within the movement against founding a political party, motivated by [[Robert Michels]]' [[iron law of oligarchy]], which claims that movements inevitably degenerate into [[Oligarchy|oligarchies]] when they create a formal organization.<ref name="Mickelsson">Rauli Mickelsson. Suomen puolueet - Historia, muutos ja nykypäivä. Vastapaino 2007, 429 pages.</ref> The party still stresses openness and democratic decision-making, even if the Finnish word, "''liitto''", has been dropped from the party's website and advertisements, the word still remains in its official and registered name.