Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck are in a really good mood on this sultry summer morning. Berlin-Wedding, an industrial building that was converted into a coworking space, the two party chairmen of the Greens present the draft for their new basic program, which they want to adopt at their party conference in autumn.
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Baerbock speaks first, she sits between Habeck and the political director Michael Kellner: “This is a program for the breadth of society that underpins our claim to leadership,” she says. Kellner goes even further: “This draft is the answer to the outdated concept of the popular parties,” he says. “It defines us as a modern alliance party with the right to majority support for all of society.”
Leadership claim, majority ability: There is no question that the Greens want to fight for first place with the Union in the next federal election. They haven’t dared to say that so clearly for a long time. The fear of shame about one’s own hubris was too great, should the poll values go down again, should the party end up far behind Union, maybe even behind the SPD in the election.
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Greens want to challenge Union
Reminder: At the Bundestag election 2017 The Greens reached 8.9 percent and celebrated it as a good result. The SPD was 20.5 percent, CDU and CSU 33 percent of the vote.
But now, three years later, the demands are different, say the Greens, that they are more than a one-topic party. They talk surprisingly little about climate protection and environmental policy, but about the effects of the crisis. About justice, education, provision, economy.
They believe they can challenge the Union in the election next year. Although they are currently 17 percentage points behind the Union in surveys. “The Union is a little overrated in the polls, the strategic problems are obvious,” says Habeck. If you refer to the polls, you have to look at the movement – the Greens would have looked after the start of the Coronakrise fought back again.
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In fact, just a few weeks ago, the party was well below 20 percent, and an Infratest poll published today sees it right there again. Also in the SPIEGEL survey by the Civey Institute it goes up again.
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In the morning, the Greens presented the CDU with a present basket for their 75th birthday. Rhubarb spritzer and ginger tubers were in it, says Habeck. Because the CDU has been drinking ginger tea and rhubarb spritzer since the Jamaica negotiations in 2017. “You can assert your style very successfully,” says Habeck.
And of course they also packed the green policy program into it for the Christian Democrats. Baerbock says whether the Union now sees this as a declaration of war, everyone has to decide for themselves. It is obvious that she prefers interpretation as a declaration of war.
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“… to respect and to protect …” they have christened the basic program. This refers to Article 1 of the Basic Law, which means: “Human dignity is inviolable. To respect and protect it is an obligation of all state authority.” Kellner explains: “We place democracy so centrally because we have to protect our constitution.” The Greens don’t do it anymore.
The draft program is in the form of a paragraph, the Greens try not to sound too cloudy, which is not always possible. But at least the program has only 58 pages, the basic program from 2002 is 190 pages long.
Some of the main points:
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The Greens, well known in the past for revolutionary tendencies, are clearly committed to “social-ecological Market economy“and even write that growth in certain areas will also be important in a future economy.
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So far it was Rejection of genetic engineering Part of the green DNA. Only last week there was a parliamentary decision stating that there was no “convincing evidence that Genetic engineering– Plants actually make a contribution to improving the world food situation. “That reads more openly in the basic program. It says:” The focus is not on technology, but on its opportunities, risks and consequences. “
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Another old issue: the relationship with homeopathy and whether the cost of the sugar balls should be covered by the health insurance. An internal party commission to clarify the question failed. The draft states: “Services that are medically necessary and whose effectiveness has been scientifically proven must be taken over by the solidarity community.” The effectiveness of globules has not been established.
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The Property tax is in – or not. The draft says: The taxes on capital and profit income and large assets must be raised again.
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One of the few points where the program becomes concrete concerns the Education policy: The size of the school classes should be reduced to under 20 children in order to minimize differences in social conditions.
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The program includes a commitment to European Union and to further develop into a federal European republic with a common fiscal policy, the euro as the leading currency and a common security policy. Important basic industries should remain in the EU: “If necessary, non-European takeovers must also be prohibited. Critical infrastructure and key industries must be protected.”
Genetic engineering should cause controversy
Just about the research and the Use of new genetic engineering methods in agriculture there will be arguments until the party congress. Anna Christmann, spokeswoman for the group’s innovation policy, says that the passage on genetic engineering lives up to the claim “New times, new answers”. “Overall, I’m thrilled that our party is so adaptive and curious about new solutions.”
Christmann recently asked other MPs to rethink the party in genetic engineering. “If we do not contribute constructively to the discourse on a new approach to genetic engineering, the future will be discussed without us,” the paper said. A week later, the parliamentary group took the decision critical of genetic engineering.
In fact, the program draft is also well received by critics. They include Harald Ebner, the Group’s spokesman for genetic engineering policy. Ebner says he is satisfied that the draft supports strict and consistent regulation of technology. He also welcomes the fact that the precautionary principle is mentioned in the program. Technologies that could potentially pose a danger to the environment must not be approved under this principle.
Even before the basic program was presented, it had been said that it should name ambivalences. Indeed there are now.
Ready for power?
It shouldn’t be a coincidence that the party leadership presented the policy program on the 75th birthday of the CDU. In a letter from Baerbock and Habeck to the Christian Democrats, in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“was published, the Greens’ chiefs wrote that it could not be that the CDU turned 75 because it must always have been 75. Because Kohl had been chancellor forever. Because in 1957 they advertised with the slogan” No experiments ” A little teasing.
Habeck and Baerbock write that they secretly admired the self-image that the Union had had in dealing with political power.
Now, it sounds, they feel themselves ready for power in the country.
At the presentation on Friday, Habeck listed the successes he had claimed for his party in the past few weeks: “Prevention of scrappage bonus, introduction of corona bonds at European level, the app was basically built according to our suggestions, the debate age 16, deletion of ‘race’ from the Basic Law, stop from a bad compromise for sow keeping. “
In any case, the Greens are no longer afraid of hubris.
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