After an election campaign with many lows, the Greens have met for a small party conference in Berlin to lick their wounds and gain momentum for the last days before the election.
Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock rallied party members to give it their all on the final stretchImage: Kay Nietfeld/dpa/picture alliance
Advertisement
The Green Party's candidate for chancellor kept the photographers and cameramen waiting for over half an hour on Sunday morning. Then Annalena Baerbock made a grand entrance withparty co-chair Robert Habeck and other party colleagues to kick off a "small party conference" in Berlin, one week before the general election. The 100 delegates wanted to send a "strong signal for the final spurt" in the election campaign.
It was only late in the campaign that Baerbock managed to get back on track and talk about her central policy issue, climate protection. By then, however, the Greens had already slipped in the polls — from a spectacular 26% in May to currently 15 to 17% percent. In the last general election in 2017, they came in at only 8.9%.
Reporter - German election: Rejuvenating politics
12:31
This browser does not support the video element.
Shattered dreams
That Baerbock will win the chancellorship now seems highly unlikely; the environmentalist party is in third place in the polls behind the center-left Social Democrat (SPD) and the center-right bloc made up of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Advertisement
Right at the beginning of her speech on Sunday, Baerbock went on the offensive: "Yes, the last few weeks have been turbulent. But now we feel confidence again," she said. "One in three voters is still undecided, that's 20 million people, that's a lot," she continued, encouraging her audience to use the coming week to fight for every single vote.
Germany's Greens have been trailblazers for ecological movements around the world. But since the 1980s they have become increasingly mainstream.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Pfund
1980: Unifying protest movements
The Green party was founded in 1980, unifying a whole array of regional movements made up of people frustrated by mainstream politics. It brought together feminists, environmental, peace and human rights activists. Many felt that those in power were ignoring environmental issues, as well as the dangers of nuclear power.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images/H. Langenheim
Attracting high-profile leftists
The influential German artist Joseph Beuys (left) was a founding member of the new party. And its alternative agenda and informal style quickly attracted leftist veterans from the 1968 European protest movement, including eco-feminist activist Petra Kelly (right), who coined the phrase that the Greens were the "anti-party party."
Image: ullstein bild/dpa
Party ambiance at party meetings
From the start the Green party conferences were marked by heated debate and extreme views. Discussions went on for many hours and sometimes a joyous party atmosphere prevailed.
Image: Imago Images/F. Stark
Greens enter the Bundestag
In 1983 the Greens entered the German parliament, the Bundestag, having won 5.6% in the national vote. Its members flaunted their anti-establishment background and were eyed by their fellow parliamentarians with a certain amount of skepticism.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo
Green Party icon Joschka Fischer
Joschka Fischer became the first Green party regional government minister in 1985 when he famously took the oath of office wearing white sports sneakers. He later became German foreign minister in an SPD-led coalition government. And was vilified by party members for abandoning pacifism in support of German intervention in Kosovo in 1999.
Image: picture alliance/Sven Simon
Unification in a united Germany
With German reunification, the West German Greens merged with the East German protest movement "Bündnis 90" in 1993. But the party never garnered much support in the former East Germany (GDR).
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Pro-Europe
Today's Green voters are generally well-educated, high-earning urbanites with a strong belief in the benefits of multicultural society and gender equality. And no other party fields more candidates with an immigrant background. The party focuses not only on environmental issues and the climate crisis but a much broader spectrum of topics including education, social justice, and consumer policies.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/H. Schmidt
Turning conservative
Environmental topics are no longer the exclusive prerogative of the Greens, whose members have morphed from hippies to urban professionals. Winfried Kretschmann personifies this change: The conservative first-generation Green politician became the party's first politician to serve as a state premier. He teamed up with the Christian Democrats and has been reelected twice to lead Baden-Württemberg.
Image: Oliver Zimmermann/foto2press/picture alliance
Robert Habeck moves the party to the center
In 2021, Robert Habeck stepped aside to allow Annalena Baerbock to be the party's top candidate in the general election campaign. Three years later, the roles are reversed. Both symbolize the new pragmatism and confidence of the Greens and are not interested in the trench warfare between fundamentalists and pragmatists that marked the Green party debates of the early years.
Now the Greens want to focus once again on the issue of climate protection — and they want to allay voters' fears that this might mean a loss of prosperity and too many restrictions in everyday life. In the six-page draft of the "Social Pact for Climate-Friendly Prosperity," which Sunday's party conference adopted, there is the promise to partly compensate people if gasoline prices continue to rise because of climate protection policies.
Baerbock called out to the delegates, "Now, at this moment, when a large part of the German economy says yes to protecting the climate, then this issue must become a matter for the boss."
Co-party leader Robert Habeck accused the "grand coalition" of CDU/CSU and SPD, which has been in power for the last eight years, of failing to provide answers on how to achieve the climate targets. Instead, he said, the conservatives had been conjuring up a "stupid contrast" between economic growth and climate protection as well as justice and climate protection in the election campaign, he said, whereas these issues were absolutely reconcilable.
The Greens also promise to focus on equality issues — should they be part of the next government, they stressed, one of their first acts would be to raise the minimum wage to twelve euros ($14). Another priority is to introduce a basic child benefit to overcome child poverty. Baerbock again called it unacceptable that Germany is one of the richest countries and yet every fifth child here lives in relative poverty.
German election 2021: Governing coalition options
A German government needs a 50% majority in parliament, but no one party can get so much voter support. So they agree on coalitions — and the next government will be no exception. Here is an overview of the options.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. Hörhager
Deciphering the color code
The center-right Christian Democrat CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU are symbolized by the color black. The center-left Social Democrat SPD is red, as is the socialist Left Party. The neoliberal Free Democrats' (FDP) color is yellow. And the Greens are self-explanatory. German media often refer to color combinations and national flags, using them as shorthand for political coalitions.
Image: Fotolia/photocrew
Black, red, green — the Kenya coalition
A coalition of center-right Christian Democrats (black) and center-left Social Democrats (red) plus the Green Party would secure a comfortable majority. Such a coalition has been in power in the state of Brandenburg. On a federal level this would be a first.
Image: Fotolia/aaastocks
Black, yellow and green — the Jamaica coalition
The center-right Christian Democrats have often teamed up with the much smaller pro-free market Free Democrats (FDP) at the state and the national level over the years. Taking in the Greens to form a three-way coalition would be an option attractive to many in the CDU. But the Greens and the FDP do not make easy bedfellows, and a similar attempt failed after the last election in 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb
Black, red, yellow — the Germany coalition
The center-right CDU and the center-left SPD plus the business-focused FDP. This combination would easily clear the 50% threshold in parliament, and would be the preferred option for business leaders and high-income earners. But if the SPD takes the lead we'd see red, black, yellow — a less conservative option.
Image: imago images/Waldmüller
Red, red, green
The Social Democrats teaming up with the Greens and the Left Party is a specter the conservatives like to raise whenever they perform badly in the polls. But the SPD and Left Party have a difficult history. And the Left's extreme foreign policy positions would likley hamper negotiations.
Image: Imago/C. Ohde
Red, yellow, green — a 'traffic light' coalition
The free-market-oriented liberal FDP has in the past generally ruled out federal coalitions sandwiched between the Social Democrats and the Greens. But this year, the FDP has not ruled out any options. Germany's traditional kingmaker party may above all be keen to return to power — no matter in which color combination.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/J.Büttner
Black and red, red and black — the 'grand coalition'
A "grand coalition" of CDU and SPD, the "big tent parties," has been in power for the past eight years with the conservatives taking the lead. If the election results allow it, this combination may continue in government ... with the stronger party naming the chancellor.
Image: imago images/Shotshop
7 images1 | 7
Commitment to an alliance with the SPD
The mood among the delegates was defiantly optimistic. Claudia Roth, a Green Party veteran and vice president of the Bundestag, told DW on the sidelines of the meeting that one reason was that more than 2,000 people had attended an election event with Annalena Baerbock in Augsburg, Bavaria, while only about 400 people had attended the campaign event of CDU candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet.
Although the Green Party is in coalition governments with the CDU and the SPD in several German states, most speakers on Sunday spoke out in favor of joining forces with the SPD. Baerbock herself again indicated this preference in an interview with the "Handelsblatt" before the party conference where she said that the CDU/CSU stood for "standstill in our country."
An alliance with the SPD alone, however, would not have a majority according to current polls. The Greens and the SPD would need a third coalition partner. And for this, both the Free Democrats and the Left Party might be an option.
Only one thing seems clear: The parties will have a difficult time forming a coalition following the vote on September 26.
This article has been translated from German.
While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year's elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.
