“The most serious crisis in ten years “: this is how the leaders of the German Green Party justified their collective resignation, announced on Wednesday, September 25, during a press conference called at the last minute. The tandem that had led the party since 2022, formed by MPs Omid Nouripour and Ricarda Lang, as well as the entire federal office of the party, cited the succession of electoral defeats suffered recently by the ecologists.
The disastrous results in the last three regional elections in September, in which the Greens were ousted from the parliaments of Thuringia and Brandenburg, where they had been sitting for fifteen years, confirmed a decline that was already clearly visible in the European elections in June 2024. The party had already almost halved its result compared to 2019, to less than 12%. “New faces are needed to get the party out of the crisis”concluded Ricarda Lang, Omid Nouripour affirming for his part “take responsibility” of these defeats. Their decision will take effect at the party congress (on the 50the) which is to be held in Wiesbaden, near Frankfurt, in mid-November.
The dramatic departure of the party's leadership, which has been part of the ruling coalition in Berlin since 2021, comes at a time of great fragility for the latter, weakened by its internal divisions and by the rise of the extreme right in recent elections. Like the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Greens openly doubt the future of the coalition. “The big feng shui moment will never come again”Omid Nouripour said on Monday, insinuating that the parties that govern it are no longer capable of finding a compromise.
“This has no impact on the coalition”insisted Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman on Wednesday morning, downplaying the extent of the crisis within the Greens, while the conservative opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) called for early federal elections.
Rise of populist parties
The descent into hell of the German Greens, one of the oldest and most influential environmental parties in Europe, is part of a broader movement on the Old Continent, as the European elections in June showed. “In Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, environmentalists are being penalized by the rise of populist parties that have placed immigration at the heart of public debate, to the detriment of issues such as climate or environmental protection, analyses Daniel Boy, emeritus research director at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po (Cevipof) and specialist in political ecology in Europe. But the Greens have always been very open on immigration.”
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Source: Lemonde
