On 17 December 2016, SEL dissolved into Italian Left, which was officially launched as a party in early 2017.

SEL was formed as an alliance called Left and Freedom (Sinistra e Libertà, SL) in the run up to the 2009 European Parliament election in order to overcome the 4% threshold introduced by the new electoral law in February 2009.

[13][14] However, Francescato and her faction decided to keep supporting SL as Ecologists with Left Ecology Freedom and leave the Greens.

In May 2011 Giuliano Pisapia and Massimo Zedda, who had been supported by SEL in primaries, were elected mayors of Milan and Cagliari, respectively.

On 25 November of the same year, Vendola won 15.6% of the vote and came third behind Democrats Pier Luigi Bersani (44.9%) and Matteo Renzi (35.5%).

Common Good coalition, which supported PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani as candidate for Prime Minister.

In its Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol's list SEL included some representatives of the Greens of South Tyrol: one of them, Florian Kronbichler, was elected to the Chamber.

On 16 March 2013, Laura Boldrini, an independent member of SEL, was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies.