Is it goodbye sandals, hello power for Greens?

World View: It's 25 years since the Greens marched onto the German political stage in dungarees and Birkenstock sandals. Like Birkenstocks, the German Greens have gained a wider following in the intervening years as not just a sensible, but also a trendy, lifestyle choice.

As the German Greens celebrate their first quarter century, the Irish Green Party is gearing up to debate its position on the European constitution. Its decision about whether to continue its policy of yes to Europe but no to the constitution based on defence concerns could be an important milestone on the path to power.

The path to power for the German Greens began in the left-wing environmental, pacifist, anti-nuclear movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first Green MPs, bearded men and knitting women, arrived in the Bundestag in Bonn in 1983 carrying sunflowers and doves, and were greeted with haughty, chilly disdain.

The party lost its seats in parliament in 1990 after sticking to its environment electoral platform rather than discussing unification like everyone else. It merged with the East German Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90) and used the years outside parliament to resolve its internal power struggle.

The ecological radical faction, the so-called "Fundis", lost out to the pragmatic "Realos" around Joschka Fischer, who led the party back into parliament in 1994.

The price of its support for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder can be seen in how the Greens have consequently pushed through points of their original agenda since 1998: homosexual partnership laws, agreement to get out of nuclear energy and ecological tax on fuel.

"The Germans had to clean up, and Irish haven't had to yet. It's starting slowly, but I'd say it'll be a long time before you have [ green] awareness here," says Mr Ralf Sotscheck, Irish correspondent for the German Tageszeitung daily, which emerged from the same movement as the Greens. "Things seem to work here when it costs money and not because it's necessary on its own - look at the plastic-bag tax."

The crucial moment for the German Greens came a year after taking power and the debate over "pacifist passivity" and possible German military involvement in Kosovo. Mr Fischer argued that sending troops to Kosovo was not a betrayal of the party's pacifist tradition, but a chance to prove that Germany had learned the lessons of the Holocaust by refusing to allow genocide return to Europe.

His threat to resign helped focus minds and the party followed him, as it did a second time over the vote to send troops to Afghanistan.

The change of the Green Party's pacifist stance, possibly the holiest of its founding principles, helped rather than hurt the party to its best-ever election result in 2002's general election, winning nearly 9 per cent of the popular vote.

Poll analysts attribute a large part of the party's success then and since to the "Fischer effect".

The Foreign Minister has been Germany's most popular politician for years, and people talk openly of him as the "secret party leader". He even featured on the party's European election posters, a bold if somewhat ironic move for a party that shuns personality politics on principle and rejects the classic ideas of a political party leader.

Ireland's Greens are one step on with a regular party leader in Trevor Sargent, but the Irish Greens remain wary of personality politics.

"I think we have people of immense talent in the party. I don't think it's about a pivotal figure like [ Fischer]," says John Gormley TD, the Green Party chairman.

He says the turning point for the Irish Greens will be the same as that experienced by their German colleagues in 1998.

"The defining moment for German Greens was getting into government. They were hovering around the 5 per cent threshold and in government their support increased," he says. "I don't know whether it will be sooner rather than later, but in government you'll find our poll ratings will increase."

The Irish Green Party faces decisions on a series of issues, such as its roads policy, in its pursuit of votes. Mr Gormley admits that a lot of "soul-searching lies ahead" on the party's vote on the EU constitution in March.

He rejects the suggestion of Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit that the Irish Greens are worried about being overshadowed by Sinn Féin on the constitution issue. "Danny doesn't know the Irish situation. I'm living and breathing here. [ Sinn Féin] has no bearing whatsoever on the way we make a decision," says Mr Gormley.

The Irish Green Party is keen to play down the significance of the March vote, portraying it as another stop on the party's political development.

"We've come a long way on the political spectrum where we used to be on Europe, and we've acknowledged that the European project has brought huge benefits, quality and environmental legislation," says Stephen Rawson, the party's press officer.

He says the options for the March vote on the constitution could be "a yes with a critical analysis, a soft no, or the agnostic view that will give people a free choice".

There's no doubt that Fine Gael and Labour will be looking to the vote for a sign that the Green Party can compromise where necessary to co-operate in government.

The Greens have held power in Berlin for six years by demonstrating an ideological flexibility and pragmatism, proving wrong a prominent SPD politician who declared two decades ago that the Greens were a "danger to democracy".

The Irish Green Party's vote on the EU constitution could decide whether they are a seen as viable coalition partner or if they are, if not a danger to democracy, then a danger to themselves and their own dreams of entering government.