The Greens want to raise the statutory minimum wage from the current € 9.19 to € 12 per hour. The Bundesparteitag agreed on Sunday in Bielefeld a corresponding requirement of the federal executive board, which is shared also by SPD and left.
The level of the minimum wage should in future not be based solely on tariff developments, but protect against poverty and strengthen cohesion in society, according to the resolution.
The Greens are expressly in favor of an immediate increase. The decision should not be left to the actually responsible minimum wage commission. The commission, in which employers and employees are represented, operates "refusal to work", said federal managing director Michael Kellner before the delegates. "We want twelve euros immediately."
The demand to raise the minimum wage immediately is controversial among the Greens. However, an amendment to leave the decision to a reformed minimum wage commission did not find a majority for the delegates. In the motion that has now been decided, the Greens are calling for reform of the Commission.
Union Fraction vice Hermann Gröhe (CDU) criticized the result of the vote: "Wanting to disempower the collective bargaining partners by a minimum wage policy and at the same time to complain about the sinking collective bargaining - that fits back and forward together," he told the "Rheinische Post". The Greens wanted the opinion leadership in the left camp - and ran left and SPD behind.
Rising CO2 pricing and "energy money" for citizens
In addition, the Greens in Bielefeld have passed far-reaching decisions on climate protection. The party remains with their demands to get out of the coal already by 2030 and from 2030 not to allow cars with internal combustion engines. In the CO2 pricing, the party wants a starting price of 40 € per ton, the 2020 to 60 € and then continue to increase. The revenue should flow into an "energy money" of initially 100 euros per citizen, which should also be increased. The CO2 price is supposed to make fossil fuels, heating oil and natural gas more expensive. The federal government wants a CO2 entry price of ten euros.
For climate change, most amendments had been made, and the debate was particularly emotional and controversial. Where no compromise was achieved until the start of the debate, the federal executive board prevailed in the polls. The party leaders Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, who were re-elected on Saturday with a very good result, defended the main request themselves several times.
Climate movements such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion had demonstrated at the beginning of the congress at the Halle in Bielefeld, their demands go in part well beyond the Greens decisions.