How the German Greens lost their luster
Germany’s Green Party entered government in 2021 with the best election results in its history, establishing itself for the first time as a truly mainstream party with the potential to even produce a chancellor one day.
It captured five cabinet positions in the three-party coalition, including the powerful economy and foreign ministries. It appeared to have a strong mandate to promote the country’s economic transition to a greener future.
What a difference two years make. And a Russian invasion of Ukraine. And rising energy costs. And a host of missteps, admitted by some even within the party, have stalled the Greens’ momentum.
Today, the Greens are widely seen as an obstacle to the government of Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz. poll gave only a 19 percent approval rating. The Greens have come under scathing attacks from even their own coalition partners. In the eyes of their opponents, the Greens have overstepped their agenda and become the face of an excessive environmental elitism that has alienated many voters and sent masses to the far right.
In the key state elections this month, all parties in the governing coalition took a beating, but the Green Party came under special attack as populists and the far right were on the rise.
“They have turned the Greens into public enemy No. 1,” said Sudha David-Wilp, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund, a research institute.
The reversal of fortune for the Greens is the story of a party that has long struggled to transcend its roots as a niche, environmentalist party and become a more pragmatic political force capable of broader appeal to lead the country.
Founded in 1980, the Greens built their base by taking a relatively tough stance on environmental issues and climate change. Previously, their peak was as a coalition partner in the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005.
But in Scholz’s government, which also includes the pro-business Free Democrats, the green presence has been more important, and the party’s stumbles are raising questions about whether Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, can progress toward of its ambitious climate goals.
The Greens have the high-profile portfolio of Foreign Secretary, led by Annalena Baerbock, 42. They also have the important Ministry of Economy and Climate Action, led by Robert Habeck.
Mr. Habeck, 54, who has a doctorate in literary sciences and has written novels, political books and stories for young adults, was once one of the country’s most popular politicians. But he has seen his position decline along with that of his party. Today, the Greens are polling at around 14 percent, about what they achieved in the last national election, but well below the better ratings of their first months in power.
Mr. Habeck declined an interview request. But in comments to German media, he admitted that he misjudged the atmosphere of crisis fatigue in the country after a winter of dealing with rising energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The feeling of great time pressure has disappeared; Instead of the fear of a loss of gas supplies, other concerns have emerged.” he told the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “This change wasn’t very clear to me at first, and maybe that’s why I didn’t do everything right in the situation.”
Initially, Mr. Habeck and the Greens achieved significant success, pushing for an aggressive stance against Russia. They were instrumental in approving a popular €49 unlimited ride ticket to encourage people to take public transport and in implementing changes to encourage people investments in green energy.
They also skillfully helped steer Germany away from its dependence on Russian natural gas. The government has limited temperatures in public buildings to save energy. It reopened coal-fired power stations. And it quickly built terminals so that Germany could import gas from sources other than Russia.
These steps were welcomed by Germans as pragmatic and somewhat unexpected from a party traditionally committed to phasing out fossil fuels in the long term.
“The Greens were on their way to becoming a party of the political center,” said Manfred Güllner, director of the Berlin-based Forsa Institute, a polling firm. “Now the Greens are back exactly where they were for a long time: a small party that focuses on its supporters and is far from a major party.”
What was pragmatic for many Germans was seen by many members of the Greens as a betrayal of the party’s long-cherished principles.
Now that the Greens have returned to their traditional agenda, the party is reaching the limits of what many Germans are willing to sacrifice at a time of economic uncertainty due to the war in Ukraine, higher inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. pandemic. .
The shine began to wear off, Mr. Güllner said, as the Greens fought against allowing nuclear power plants to run beyond a previously agreed deadline for their closure. But Exhibit A, which shows voters’ disillusionment, was a bill Mr. Habeck promoted that would require newly installed home heating systems to run on at least 65 percent renewable energy starting next year.
The mainstream conservative opposition, the Christian Democrats, attacked the heating law, or Heizungsgesetz, as climate policy “with a crowbar.” The tabloid Bild called it ‘Habecks Heiz-Hammer’ or ‘Habeck’s heating hammer’. The Greens were easily caricatured as a party oblivious to the people’s struggles.
“They squandered a lot of their success because they seemed to distance themselves from ordinary people,” said Markus Ziener, a visiting scholar at the German Marshall Fund. “Rather than providing incentives, they were seen as telling people what is right and wrong, and lecturing people.”
Experts say the law, which was passed in a watered-down form in September, has contributed to the growing popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is polling at more than 20 percent, about the highest in its history.
Like other far-right parties across Europe, the AfD has added opposition to climate policy to its agenda, in addition to issues such as immigration, in an attempt to capitalize on the economic concerns of working people.
“What happened with the Heizungszettez was that the Greens suddenly literally knocked on people’s doors and asked: ‘Show me your heating, and it has to change,’” says Andrea Römmele, a political scientist at the Hertie School in Berlin. “It went too fast.”
Omid Nouripour, one of the co-chairs of the Greens, said the party could cope with recent setbacks and that it had come a long way from the years when it reached single digits and seemed stuck in permanent opposition.
The problems should not make the Greens hesitate, he emphasized. “We can’t slow down,” he said in an interview. “It has always been a difficult match.”
Other Greens also said they did not view the recent experience as a crisis, although they acknowledged the need to reach beyond the party’s traditional voters, who tend to be better educated and financially comfortable.
“The most important thing will be – the challenging, but also the beautiful – is to convince people who don’t yet think like us,” said Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the party’s longtime leader from East Germany. who is now Deputy Speaker of Parliament.
Some say the Greens can still bounce back. Bernd Ulrich, a journalist at the newspaper Die Zeit who is writing a book on green politics, said Mr Habeck in particular would be crucial to whether the party could restore its status.
“It is the deepest crisis in the history of the Greens,” he said. “Robert Habeck is by far the most talented politician in Germany. He has become a scapegoat. But he can get them over it.”