Green party congress: frustration and new impulses

In view of falling polls, the Greens are encouraging each other at their party congress. A verbal outburst from co-party leader Habeck also reveals the frustration in the party.

“Germany. Everything is included”, so it is confidently above the election manifesto of the Greens. Chancellery, People’s Party, definitely ruling party – that seemed possible in the spring. The certainty of victory has waned for weeks. The candidate for chancellor has gambled away the promise of airing the country through the country after 16 years of Merkel as a dynamic young woman. So was that it for the Greens?

They are political professionals enough not to show their disappointment with falling polls. At the party conference in Berlin, the party celebrates itself and its top candidate with standing ovations. It works like a whistle in the forest: encourage and entertain – symbolically on a stage that adorns a huge photo with an idyllic forest clearing.

Kretschmann advises calmness

Winfried Kretschmann, the only Green Prime Minister, liked to read the riot act of his party in the past. Now he advises calm. And he scolds his political competitors. It is a huge shock when there is a warning of a “green danger”. The debates about a lack of innovations and bans are artificial. So far, the Greens’ election campaign has involved a strange reluctance to deal with competitors.

And some of the Greens ‘friends’ react surprised or slightly offended that the party’s concepts have been examined particularly critically. That voters doubt whether the ecological restructuring of society really has to come so quickly and so comprehensively. And how, above all, the socially weak should pay him.

Reach people beyond the regular electorate

It was overdue that a program was presented at this last party meeting before the election that concretized the plan for the socially just climate change: a minimum wage of twelve euros, the right to qualifications to prevent unemployment, basic child benefits and more money for Schools in socially disadvantaged areas, relief for tenants and a bonus of 9,000 euros when buying an electric car for lower incomes. That is not calculated. The money is to be brought in through a more determined fight against tax evasion and tax havens.

It is an attempt to reach people beyond the core green electorate. People who do not want to continue like this in the face of floods, fires and environmental disasters. People who don’t believe in moderate changes or that the post-pandemic economy will pick up and fix it on their own.

Habeck’s outbreak

It is irritating how co-party leader Robert Habeck frightens those present at the end of the party conference in Berlin. It’s not about the Greens at all, but about the great social task of saving the planet. In view of this choice of direction, the election campaign of all parties has got stuck in the small and well-trodden paths.

He misses new thinking, competition of ideas and a government that no longer sits out problems. Habeck’s emotional outburst should probably be an impetus. But he also shows his own frustration with the weak performance of his party. Everything still seems to be possible – for the Greens after the federal election.