In these times, the top of the green is not lacking in self-confidence. One could say why when looking at the surveys. For months the party has been constantly above the 20 percent mark, it has easily left the SPD behind, and has even been within striking distance of the Union. Meanwhile, the grand coalition is wobbling more and more, a break and new elections next year are not out of the question.
Then the Greens would be ready. Robert Habeck stated in the summer that he had long been "in the role of a quasi-government party in waiting". At the party conference in November, the chairman followed suit. "The Merkel era is clearly coming to an end, a new era is beginning," he said. "We want to set the course. We are campaigning for responsibility for being able to shape the new era."
The Greens want to rule, that much is clear. It is less clear who they would most like to share power with. Would you form a coalition with the Union, would it be the first at federal level? Or do you prefer a left-wing alliance with the SPD and the Left? Or even the traffic lights with SPD and FDP? Computationally, too, is currently not completely out of reach.
Everything seems possible, which also has to do with the fact that the Greens can no longer be clearly located in terms of content - which is definitely wanted.
Sometimes the Greens look more left than the SPD. Example minimum wages: The SPD wants to raise it "in perspective" to 12 euros, the Greens see this as an "immediate measure". Or unfounded fixed-term employment contracts: The SPD writes that they want an "effective restriction". The Greens: "We want to abolish unreasonable time limits". Both question the black zero.
At the SPD, such positions at the party convention are interpreted as a sign of their shift to the left. With the Greens, however, there is no such rating.
Not a party for the eco-avant-garde
This is due to the top staff. The leadership duo from Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck is not on the left, they belong to the Realo wing and are political pragmatists. "We fill in the blanks left by the CDU and SPD," said Habeck in a SPIEGEL interview this year. "We are no longer just the party that makes ecological policies for a small avant-garde."
Habeck negotiated Jamaica in Schleswig-Holstein, and he gets on very well with the CDU Prime Minister Daniel Günther. Habeck should also maintain a good relationship with Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Württemberg. Kretschmann already recommended Habeck as candidate for chancellor, in the southwest he leads a coalition with the CDU.
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The political uncertainty is therefore the program. Baerbock and Habeck want to broaden the party, lead it to the center, make it selectable for conservatives. At the party conference in Bielefeld, the party leaders and the group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt wore black, red and gold on the stage. Baerbock and Habeck put their summer trip last year under the motto "The pledge of happiness". For left-wing voters more of an impertinence.
What if the Greens can appoint the chancellor?
Even in the upcoming election campaign, should it come sooner or later, the Greens will not be drawn to any coalition statement. And yet there is some reason to believe that the Green Party would actually rather do things together with the Union than with the SPD and the Left Party. Or at least expect that they will rule with the blacks:
- You have submitted a number of socio-political utopian demands. Their "guarantee system" hides costs from 7.5 billion to around 50 billion euros annually - hardly imaginable that they want to realize this. It almost seems as if they are trying to drive up the price of soundings.
- In a red-red-green government, they could not keep their promises - especially if they became the strongest force and the SPD actually moved further to the left. Suddenly the Greens would be in the role of bourgeois savers. This would disappoint many voters.
- Last year they worked out two concepts properly and provided some with financing proposals. One was an investment program that envisages 300 billion euros for ecological infrastructure over the next ten years. Even the BDI, which is close to the employer, is demanding infrastructure investments of 450 billion euros over the next ten years. At any rate, the Union would have room to negotiate here.
- The other was immediate measures to protect the climate. Here the Greens have to achieve stricter rules in a coalition - otherwise they can expect to soon find themselves in the opposition again. The Union knows that too.
There are also advocates for red-red-green among leading greens. But they are getting fewer. Nonetheless, the Greens would possibly enter into this coalition: if they become the strongest force and enough for the coalition.
In that case, they provided the chancellor. And the Greens could not miss it.