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The German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen following a 1993 merger with former East German Alliance 90) has been present in the German parliament (Bundestag) continuously since 29 March 1983 as a parliamentarian party. The status as a fraktion was lost from 1990 to 1994, being demoted to a Gruppe (group), after only the East German wing managed to pass the 5% election threshold in the December 1990 German federal election.
In the 1987 parliamentary elections, the Green Party managed to increase its share of votes to 8.3%, gaining 44 parliament seats in the process. When the East German parliament, the Volkskammer, which was freely elected on 18 March 1990 for the first time, was disbanded in the process of the German reunification, another 7 seats were added as 7 members of the 21-member Volkskammer faction of the Green Party, elected by their peers, entered the Bundestag.
In 1990, elections were held separately in former East and West Germany; in West Germany, the Green Party did not manage to gain enough votes to enter parliament, only scoring 4.8% instead of the necessary 5%, but in East Germany, the Greens gained a 6.1% share of the votes and 8 seats in the Bundestag. While a green presence in the 12th Bundestag was thus secured, the Greens could not form a faction, instead remaining a "group" (with less rights and a smaller budget).
4 years later, in 1994, the Greens managed to recover from their losses again, achieving 7.3% and entering the parliament with 48 seats. Antje Vollmer, long-time member of the faction, was elected as first Green Vice President of the Bundestag with the help of the CDU faction.
In 1998, the Green Party suffered slight losses, dropping down to 6.7%, but still managed to gain 47 seats in a larger parliament. For the first time it was possible to form a red-green government coalition with the election-winning SPD.
While the ruling SPD suffered substantial losses during the 2002 parliamentary elections and only barely managed to become the biggest faction in the Bundestag, the Green Party gained 1.9 points compared to the 1998 elections, for a total of 8.6%, yielding 55 seats.
The ruling SPD/Green Party suffered losses during the 2005 parliamentary elections leading to a Grand Coalition between the SPD and the CDU/CSU. The Green Party lost four seats to go from 55 to 51 and went into opposition with the FDP and the Left Party.
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