They lost due to Robert Habeck. No, thanks to the deputy chancellor and minister of the economy Grünen have limited the damage. In the late February elections in Germany the German Greens fell by three points at 11.6 percent. A beautiful blow but nothing compared to the government allies: the SPD of the Chancellor Olaf Scholz from the first German party was sinking to 16.4 percent, while the liberals were not even able to exceed the cumming threshold of the five, remaining outside the Bundestag. The Greens are wondering today what they will do as big: in the meantime Habeck – former minister -poet, already darling of many infatuated electrics of his wrinkled look – announced that he will come out of the room of power. Largo to young people or those who will be able to bring the battles of ecologists back to the government, today in crisis of consensus: in 2021 the Grünen had intercepted the vote of young people but at this tour the Germans with less than 25 years of age chose Linke’s social cell and sovereigns of the alternatives Für Deutschland (AFD), preferring Germany to zero emissions to social security and the defense of the borders.
Is it therefore the end of the German green, historic Alfieri of the antinuclear battle? “No,” explained the polytologist of the University of Kassel, Wolfgang Schröder, “but it is a young party, still scarcely anchored to the social fabric”. In essence, “the Greens have few mayors: someone more would have been enough to explain to Habeck that the plan to equip every new heating system by law with a heat pump was not realistic”. And that project cost so many votes.
If today the green does not “carry” the reason is above all economic: Electric cars cost dear and sustainability as well. In 2023 the percentage of renewable energy consumed in Germany was already 22 percent of the total but the German electricity bill is one of the most dear in Europe and large industry is very energetic. To the new deputies, the number one of the German Confindustria (BDI), Peter Leibinger, has already recalled that “energy prices are too high compared to other countries” and that “rapid decisions are needed on the strategy of power plants and a lightening of network tariffs and electricity taxes”.
There are those who speak of a return to nuclear power, From which Germany came out in the middle of the worst energy crisis for half a century to respect a calendar designed by the Greens but then implemented, with a sensational political “snatch”, by the former chancellor Angela Merkel. For Veronika Grimm, professor of energy systems at the University of Nuremberg and exponent of the Council of Economic Experts of Germany consulted by the Government, the return to the atom is difficult. He said revolt to the foreign press in Berlin: “It is a theme that divides the Germans in half, politically very risky”. With all due respect to the anti-rough and anti-hydrocarbons green (unlike the far-right and left parties such as Afd and Linke) more likely would be a Russian gas-style return to Germany. At the beginning of March, the Financial Times wrote that if Donald Trump will bring Russians and Ukrainians to the armistice, the North Stream 2, the second direct gas pipeline that connects the North-East German with natural gas deposits in European Russia, completed but never came into operation, could start operating. In a reversal of roles, Russian blue gold in Germany would contribute Richard Gnelell, former ambassador of the USA to Berlin under the first Trump government and already a flogger of the German addiction from Russian hydrocarbons. In the new scheme, each of the two parties would sign an intermediation contract with the Americans: if Moscow’s gas will return to scroll through the veins of the German economy that at least the United States earn something, pragmatic Trump has thought.
And if the agreement goes through and it works you can also think about repairing North Stream 1the first of the Russian-German gas pipelines sabotaged in September 2022 perhaps from Ukrainian hands. Meanwhile, the CDU of the Cancelling in pectore Friedrich Merz pushes to “consistently use renewable energies, all”, where “all” also means biomethane from agricultural subjects, another taboo of the green according to which what is cultivated is eaten but does not burn to create energy. In the same hours, the EU Commission announced that automotive will have three years instead of one to adapt to the compliance standards on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. And no fines of 15 billion euros. In short, Brussels also takes note that Germany has turned to the right starting to pull the brake on climatic objectives. With these lights of Moon at the German Greens, you just have to jump on the left and try to recover those hundreds of thousands of votes engulfed by Linke’s social tenders in the last elections. Becoming a little less green and a little more red to survive.
