WIESBADEN, Germany -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's junior coalition partners, the Ecologist Greens, opened a two-day congress Saturday to draw up a party platform as they fight for their survival in government in September elections.

The Party Congress got off to a late start at about midday at a convention center in the southwest city of Wiesbaden, with their co-president Claudia Roth due to give the opening address.

Their unofficial leader and top candidate for the September ballot, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, has been pushing the party to the political center in order to regain popularity and the congress could be stormy, AFP reported.

Fischer said in opening the party's campaign on April 24 that the election battle will be hard since "The wind is blowing really strongly in our faces."

He was speaking after the Greens failed to win representation to the Parliament of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt on April 21 in the last state election before the September general elections.

The Greens leadership wants to show moderation by backing off from further rises in the so-called ecological tax that hikes up energy prices and that has been a cornerstone of the party's policies.

Environmental hardliners, the so-called fundis, or fundamentalists, may balk at this at the weekend meeting.

They may also push for advocating the suspension of German arms shipments to Israel in order to protest violence in the Middle East.

Schroeder has rejected such measures, confirming Germany's close ties to Israel.

He has said Germany will remain a staunch ally of Israel.