Greens want to continue to be “presidential makers”

Despite their significant losses, the Greens hope to continue to leave their mark on the European Parliament and the EU Commission. What is their hope based on?

The fall is brutal: out of the 71 seats the Greens group in the European Parliament has only 53 left – a quarter less. Only 12 members of Alliance 90/The Greens now come from Germany, compared to 21 previously.

When it comes to investigating the causes, Brussels is primarily referring to the federal level: they say they have been punished for what is happening in Berlin, “the green” no longer has positive connotations, they need to communicate better with the mainstream of society and listen better.

What is changing for the Greens

For parliamentary work in Brussels, the loss of mandate means that the Greens have less claim to prominent positions such as committee chairmen. They will have less influence on the agenda and thus less ability to set their own topics, will get less speaking time and will be further down the list of speakers.

But it could also be an advantage, they say, if one can speak to the right-wing radicals in the future – then one can react better to them.

In any case, the European Greens want to continue to have a say in the Commission’s policies in the future. They want to “co-govern” and are prepared to “help Ursula von der Leyen gain a democratic majority” for a second term, group co-chair Terry Reintke has already announced.

The focus of the negotiations will be the continuation of the “Green Deal”, but also questions about the rule of law and democracy in Europe. On the status of the talks, parliamentary group leader Terry Reintke told the ARD“nothing has been decided yet”, but the talks are “constructive” and that gives her “confidence that everything is on the right track”.

Brussels Additions

And the Greens could indeed become “presidential makers”. The Christian Democratic group of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Social Democrats and Socialists (S&D) and the liberals of Renew have a mathematically comfortable majority of 40 votes.

However, since there is no party discipline in the European Parliament and all three groups include outspoken opponents of Von der Leyen, this majority could quickly become very small. The EPP is therefore interested in other majorities on both sides: the national conservative ECR alliance and the Greens.

However, additional votes from the ECR camp could cost the EPP larger blocks of votes from the S&D and the Liberals. Additional votes from the Greens, on the other hand, would be unwelcome to some in the EPP camp, but would not have the high price of ECR ​​participation.

Where is Volt heading?

It will be interesting to see whether and how the Volt high-flyers will shape the new group – if they join it at all. Volt, which sees itself as explicitly pro-European, progressive and pragmatic, was previously represented in the European Parliament by a single member, who belonged to the Green group. Now there are five of them in the parliament: three from Germany, two from the Netherlands.