She is now also bothering the traffic light negotiators, the matter of diversity. And if the SPD, Greens and FDP try to agree on a coalition agreement at the weekend, preferably by Monday, painful decisions are likely to be made. After tough talks, ministries now have to be filled. Three parties, women and men, East and West should be considered. And who actually represents people from immigrant families in the cabinet?
More than a quarter of the population in Germany today has ancestors from other cultures, 13 percent of those eligible to vote, and the trend is rising. This diversity was hardly reflected in the last Bundestag. That is slowly changing. In the left-wing parliamentary group there are now 28 percent MPs with a migration background, while in the SPD, at 17 percent, it is significantly more than before. In the case of the Greens, of all things, the proportion fell slightly to a good 14 percent. In the case of the FDP and Union, it remains well below average, at five and four percent.
The situation is better than it used to be, but inadequate, says Berlin integration researcher Naika Foroutan. “Representation is a democratic principle. It applies not only to different regions that are brought into parliaments, but also to gender, religion or migration background.” In the long run, it is also not enough for parties to negotiate for other social groups or to appoint migration officers without the group gaining any significant influence. “The members of the group have to make a substantial contribution of their biographical experience.”
Foroutan, who conducts research on participation and post-migrant society, is familiar with the tiresome debate about identity politics – and the criticism that one does not have to be a woman or a migrant who advocates equality for women or migrants. In the long run, however, it should not remain with the symbolic agent system, not even in the next government. The moment for substantial representation must be used. “Otherwise nothing happens.”
But where are they, the migrant applicants for a ministerial office? The SPD has named Aydan Özoğuz as Vice President of the Bundestag. There is no one in sight for top government posts. The FDP already feels overwhelmed by the demand for women’s parity in the cabinet, to say nothing of a migrant quota. That leaves the Greens, who with a grand gesture have given themselves a statute of diversity. It stipulates that representatives of disadvantaged groups should be represented in important posts as strongly as in the rest of society. Theoretically.
Ex-Green chief Cem Özdemir could get a ministerial post
The reality is different. “I think that not enough thought is given,” says Aminata Touré, referring to the lack of non-white faces in politics. “The Greens in particular now have to get serious and implement their good intentions when it comes to the distribution of power.” Touré, Vice-President of the State Parliament in Schleswig-Holstein, is an Afro-German official, an exception among the Greens, despite the diversity statute, which has apparently had little effect so far.
In any case, one looks for diversity in the first row of the Greens in vain, even with the current government formation. Aminata Touré canceled a government post in Berlin, according to the Federal Greens. I regret that. Touré herself says, however, that she was not even asked and that she has other plans. She is now running as one of two top candidates in the next state election in Schleswig-Holstein. The new member of the Bundestag and Islamic scholar Lamya Kaddor was apparently not considered for a government post by the Greens. Foreign politician Omid Nouripour is also unlikely to become a minister, he is warming up for the Green party chairmanship.
That leaves the defense expert Agnieszka Brugger, who at least has a Polish mother, as her supporters emphasize. A ministerial post could also roll on ex-Greens boss Cem Özdemir. But there is resistance here. If Realo Özdemir got the transport department, the party left Anton Hofreiter would have to give way, for example to the field of agriculture. The problem with diversity would then be solved, but the balance between the sexes and party wings could possibly be disturbed. One was still negotiating, it was said at last. There is no lack of desires.