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The Greens chairmen Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock in the studio living room: a room like the party
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
Perhaps the most impressive picture that remains of this weekend is the studio living room that the Greens set up in the Tempodrom.
An orange-brown sofa, a green armchair, a floor lamp from the sixties.
The cardboard wall is painted with a wiping technique and kept in brown, on it hang pictures from 40 years of green history and a poster from 1979: "Shutdown (sic!) Of all nuclear facilities."
The living room is how the party looks: a bit stuffy, celebrating the bourgeoisie, they nailed memories of the rebellious youth on the wall, next to them the memories of the arrival in the bourgeoisie, these are the pictures of the electoral successes in Bavaria in 2018 and at the 2019 European elections, when the Greens won over 20 percent of the vote for the first time in a nationwide election.
Arrived home
On this weekend, the top management, the presidium and the "technical application commission" gathered in the Tempodrom to hold the first three-day digital party conference in Germany.
In the studio living room there are usually two professional moderators, sometimes with the party leaders Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, often alone.
They fill the gaps that arise again and again due to technical breakdowns and coordination.
The Greens actually want to adopt their basic program, but the party congress will also be a kind of campaign prelude for the federal election in 2021. Then the party, which in the polls currently has 20 percent of the vote, wants to become the strongest force in the country.
For a long time the word "power" alone was a bad word for the Greens, now they almost show off their ambitions.
During his speech, Habeck says: »Power - that has often been a yuck term in our cosmos.
But power comes from making. «The values of a society are made.
"If we want to do our part to ensure that our society is a society, then we have to establish consensus by exercising power," he says.
The "losing side" should also support decisions "because they were heard and treated fairly".
It's a shift in green rhetoric.
So far they have spoken in clauses of a »claim to leadership«, of an »offer to the broader society«.
Their language has long been clearer in confidential meetings, they want to send a "declaration of war to the Union" is something that can be heard over and over again.
The challenge is to be this basic program.
It will be clear after this weekend at the latest that the grassroots will largely support this change.
Greens stage controversy
Perhaps it is clearest when it comes to referendums on Sunday morning.
The party said from the start that this vote could be lost for the federal executive board.
It's a calculated argument.
Important enough to heat up green spirits, not so important that possible coalition negotiations on it would endanger.
The vote is intended to prove that the Greens leadership still allows conflicts after they have been accused of stifling disputes in recent years and months.
So now a fight vote.
Michael Kellner, Federal Managing Director and himself a member of the Federal Executive Committee, speaks in favor of the motion for referendums.
This is also a sign of openness to conflict, the own federal manager may speak against the federal executive board.
Referendums are the legacy of Bündnis 90, he says, the East German civil rights movement that formed Alliance 90 / The Greens in 1993 with the Greens.
The former member of the Bundestag Gerald Häfner also pleads for it.
"Please don't choose the green self-amputation," he says.
Demanding more direct democracy has long been part of the basic repertoire of every Greens.
In addition to Habeck, Jürgen Trittin speaks in favor of a motion by the federal executive committee that does not provide for referendums, but rather so-called »citizens' councils«.
He has problems with the technology, you can hear him twice, Trittin hits something you can't see, maybe it's the keyboard, maybe the table, in any case it crashes.
"Oh, man," he calls out.
But then he speaks.
"Referendums only know yes or no," he says, "referendums divide".
Surprisingly, the federal board's proposal wins, 382 to 344 votes.
The result is a sign that the party is ready to rethink even green positions.
The Greens are no longer a niche party, they have gained over 40,000 new members since 2017 and the new people are not necessarily committed to the old goals.
However, the new Greens also see themselves as mostly progressive, in parts as left.
The federal board loses an important vote
A few hours later, the debate on the basic income shows that the federal executive is not all-powerful.
The Greens have been arguing about it for years.
There are old opponents and new supporters.
The corona crisis has reignited the debate, if there was a basic income, many solo self-employed artists and artists would not scratch the subsistence level.
On the other hand: The project is expensive, very expensive.
The radical proposal for an unconditional basic income does not make it into the basic program, but a compromise proposal by Sven Lehmann, member of the Bundestag.
This provides for the first step to install the guarantee protection proposed by the federal executive committee, but in further steps the social benefits should be "merged".
Then follows the decisive sentence: "We are guided by the central idea of an unconditional basic income."
The speech against Lehmann's motion is given by Baerbock himself.
That is not a compromise, but rather a "both-and-also" function in the "party convention logic", but not in "real life".
The criticism did not prevent the delegates from voting for Lehmann's proposal.
461 delegates were in favor, the motion of the federal leadership received only 274 votes.
For the federal board it is the only major defeat this weekend.
In an SMS, Lehmann wrote to SPIEGEL: “That is a great result!
We Greens are consistently saying goodbye to Hartz IV and are orienting our policy towards the guiding principle of basic income.
Vision and realistic steps, the Greens can still do both. "
Green tip prevents open arguments with activists
In view of this result, the federal executive board should be happy that it managed to clear another major controversial issue before it came to a fight vote.
That could have had consequences outside of the green cosmos.
It is the 1.5 degree target for climate protection.
One applicant wanted to make it the "standard" of green policy.
For activists from Fridays for Future, the threatened vote acted like a catalyst.
They publicly repeated allegations that they have been making the Greens for a long time.
At least since the Greens in Hesse helped clear the Dannenröder Forest, the relationship between the party and the movement has been hypothermic.
Luisa Neubauer, the best-known climate protector in Germany and herself a member of the party, told the "taz" that the Greens seemed to her "a little panicked".
»The formula has burned into their heads: A lot of climate means fewer votes.
They think Fridays for Future touch their sacred 20 percent, ”Neubauer told the newspaper.
Harsh words for the party, which feels closer to the activists than any other.
In a video played at the party congress, an activist said she had experienced "a great deal of disappointment," but that the Greens are the party they have most hoped for.
If the party leadership had put the "standard" demand to a vote, it could have had serious realpolitical consequences.
The 1.5 degree target is not a direct specification of the Paris Climate Protection Agreement, but a target.
The agreement states that global warming should be limited to “well below 2 degrees Celsius”.
If the Greens had strictly committed themselves to limiting global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees, they would have had to push through particularly drastic emissions reductions in possible coalition negotiations - a major hurdle for a possible agreement in the formation of a government.
The federal executive fought for a solution.
Baerbock even addressed it in her political speech on Friday evening: »Shaking the Paris Treaty - no matter how well it is meant, prevents us from finally filling it with life together.
The promise of Paris, the 1.5 degree path, is worthless if it is not implemented in concrete policy for each sector. «A clear warning to the party friends.
Baerbock negotiated with the applicants and a compromise was found on Saturday night.
The Greens now want to embark on the »1.5 degree path«, this formulation leaves room for maneuver.
Neubauer called the solution on Twitter an "important step".
But this conflict shows how serious the dispute between climate activists and the party is.
The further the Greens move into the middle and the more clearly they express their claim to power, the more radical environmental demands fall behind.
Also because the Greens absolutely want to show that they are capable of governing.
They have to face the balancing act of being criticized by the left as arbitrary and by conservatives as too radical.
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Annalena Baerbock: "Don't be afraid"
Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Strategically, the Greens must work towards the middle with a view to next year's election.
That is where elections are ultimately won.
Nobody tried so hard as Baerbock to take away the fear of the Greens from bourgeois voters.
In the meantime she sounded pastoral: “Don't be afraid, this climate revolution is about as crazy as a building society loan agreement.
Repositioning the economic system does not mean overthrowing it; it is pure self-protection. "
It is the green promise of salvation.
The fight for Merkel voters has begun.
Icon: The mirror
