In the Greens, resistance is forming against the possible exclusion of the mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer. A support group submitted an appeal signed by more than 500 Green members on Monday calling for Palmer to remain in the party. Palmer is not to be blamed for party-damaging behavior, it says in the text, “because no German mayor” has “realized so many primeval green goals” as this one, for example in climate and transport policy.
One of the signatories of the appeal, Klaus-Peter Murawski, long-time head of the state chancellery of Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, said the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Boris Palmer has demonstrably achieved great things in Tübingen, incidentally also in integration policy. I quarrel with some of his statements, but you should measure him by his actions and not by his Facebook posts.”
The support group that initiated the call includes two members from Palmer’s Tübingen district association as well as the former State Secretary in the Federal Development Ministry, Uschi Eid. The majority of the signatories come from Baden-Württemberg, where Palmer continues to have many advocates in the old Realo wing. In addition to Murawski, another former Minister of Kretschmann signed Franz Untersteller, as did former State Councilor Gisela Erler.
There are also some local politicians whose names are symbolically linked to the rise of the Greens in the south-west, such as the former mayors of Freiburg and Konstanz, Dieter Salomon and Horst Frank, or Elmar Braun, who was elected the first green town hall chief in Germany in 1991 in Maselheim, Upper Swabia .
Palmer provoked with populist remarks
The state party conference of the Southwest Greens had decided to expel him last May due to repeated verbal abuses by Palmer, but this is only slowly getting underway. The green national association accuses Palmer of using a racist term and rejecting the UN migration pact.
The authors of the appeal now state that they too “consider some of Boris’s statements to be inappropriate, tasteless, insulting or disturbing”. However, this is not a reason for exclusion from the party: “We remember the culture of debate that is held in high esteem in our party and which we consider particularly worthy of protection.” Characters are unfortunately “not seen as an interesting enrichment” by the Greens.
Boris Palmer himself does not want to comment publicly on the ongoing proceedings, he is represented by his lawyer Rezzo Schlauch, the former Green parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag. Palmer has also not yet announced whether he will run for re-election as Lord Mayor in the fall of 2022. The Tübingen Greens want to determine their candidate in the spring by primary election. The green district councilor Ulrike Baumgärtner has already expressed interest in an application. There is speculation that Palmer could enter the race as an independent OB candidate.