In a major shift in tone, the German Greens will focus their campaign on themes such as security and boosting business alongside classic green topics, as they seek to portray themselves as the pragmatic party of government and win back voters.
At the last European election, the Greens’ campaign with the headline “Renewing Europe’s Promise,” emphasised the future opportunities of the green transition and proposals such as the Green New Deal.
This year’s narrative will revolve around “maintaining what strengthens and protects us”, the draft reads, in a thinly veiled appeal to centrist voters, as leaders emphasised the need to listen to common concerns and struck a pragmatic tone.
“Many people rightly long for prosperity and peace,” Ricarda Lang, the leader of the Greens, told reporters at the manifesto launch on Thursday.
In response to looming challenges such as “the future of democracy, the economic and social state of the EU” and the success of nationalist parties, the Greens were thus looking to strengthen their “social and economic profile”, Rasmus Andresen, the chair of the German Greens in the European Parliament, told Euractiv.
Meanwhile, Lang’s co-leader, Omid Nouripour, presented the Greens as a force of moderation.
“Compromise is the core of democracy (…), what matters is European success, not who wins, and European success has no colour,” he said.
Realpolitik and the environment
Policy-wise, the manifesto thus tries to marry realpolitik and business-friendly rhetoric with the Greens’ traditional positions.
„Prosperity and climate protection go hand in hand. The most profitable markets will soon be climate-neutral,“ Pegah Edalatian, the party’s deputy chair and coordinator for European affairs, told Euractiv.
The Greens propose the creation of a European “infrastructure union”, which would build a network of renewable energy supply lines and expand the digital and social infrastructure. A cross-European ticketing system is supposed to boost the use of climate-neutral rail services.
This is flanked by hawkish overtones in geopolitics and security policy. The Greens stress the need for an integrated security policy and a stronger position vis-a-vis China and the US. They advocate the creation of a central European intelligence agency to fight crime and terrorism.
Rebuilding trust
The new rhetoric of moderation and pragmatism reflects the Greens’ troubled stint in power as a junior partner in Germany’s three-way coalition government alongside the centre-left SPD and the pro-market FDP.
The party still grapples with the coalition’s bad poll ratings after weeks of government infighting. It largely centred on the Greens’ unpopular flagship policy, which mandates the replacement of broken gas-based heating systems with systems powered by renewable energy.
The Greens, thus would need to “secure and rebuild trust” among voters, Lang acknowledged.
Still, Nouripour underlined the Greens’ independent claim to power, rejecting the idea that the manifesto was an attempt to forge a collaboration with the EPP, a centre-right party group in parliament.
“The EPP blocks everything when it comes to implementation”, Nouripour said.
Reconciling the base
Yet the leadership is walking a tightrope as they have to persuade other party members of the shift in tone. Previously, voices within the party had expressed discontent regarding some of Berlin’s decisions, such as the support for a migration reform proposal which involves prolonged detention of certain asylum applicants at the EU border.
“We’re not going to stop at the ‘traffic light’ compromises,” Andresen thus promised, adding that he expected changes, as the party base would “sharpen our profile even more with further amendments.”
Lang admitted she was braced for controversies.
“A party leadership which presents a completely uncontroversial manifesto is doing something wrong (…) – we’re definitely taking a stance with this,” she said.
The final text is due to be passed at a conference from 23 through 26 November.
(Nick Alipour | Euractiv.de)
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