After Lang-Nouripour’s resignation
Executive board of the Green Youth leaves the party
25.09.2024, 23:13
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After the sudden resignation of the Green Party leadership in the morning, the next surprise followed in the evening: the board of the Green Youth resigned en masse and wanted to turn its back on the party completely. The ten-member committee announced its own decidedly left-wing association.
The board of the Green Youth wants to leave the party en masse. The chairmen of the Green youth organization, Svenja Appuhn and Katharina Stolla, announced this in an internal letter to the party and parliamentary group leadership in the evening. “As you may have already heard, we – the entire federal board of the Green Youth – have decided not to run again and to leave the party tomorrow,” it says. It goes on to say that this decision was made before the announcement of the resignation of the party board.
“We notice that our substantive and strategic ideas about politics are becoming increasingly divergent – and we believe that in the medium term there will be no majority in the party for a class-oriented policy that focuses on social issues and shows perspectives for a fundamentally different economic system,” the letter states.
The board will conscientiously complete its official duties until the Green Youth Federal Congress from October 18 to 20 in Leipzig, facilitate the election of the new federal board and then also leave the Green Youth. “We will then set out to found a new, decidedly left-wing youth association,” said the ten board members. It is not possible in the long term to be part of a party and to promote a fundamentally different policy than that implemented by one’s own party, the board wrote to the party leadership.
Lang and Nouripour: A new start is needed
In the morning, Green Party leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour and the entire party executive board announced their resignation. After a series of poor election results, the Greens are “in the deepest crisis in a decade,” Nouripour said in Berlin to justify this drastic step. A “fresh start” is needed to lead the party out of this crisis.
What is needed now are “new faces,” said co-party leader Ricarda Lang. The election of a new executive board should be a “building block for the strategic repositioning of this party.” Lang added: “Now is not the time to cling to your chair – now is the time to take responsibility.” The new leadership should be elected at the party conference in November; until then, the current executive board will remain in office.
Habeck sees no problem for traffic light
After the resignation of the Green Party leadership, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck announced that the traffic light coalition with the SPD and FDP would continue until the federal election in September 2025. “You stay in a government, even if it gets difficult,” said the Green politician on ZDF in the evening. “You finish the job.” He did not want to believe that in the federal election in a year’s time, those “who only badmouth, blame others, but do not tackle the problems” would be rewarded, said Habeck. “We will put that up for election, and then we will be able to achieve a very good election result.”
Habeck stressed that he saw the party leader’s resignation as an opportunity for a fresh start. Both parties deserve credit for that. “I will not forget that,” said Habeck. The Vice Chancellor was thus indirectly courting the delegates of the federal party conference, from whom he hopes to gain support for a candidacy for chancellor in the federal election.
He hopes for an honest discussion and debate at the party conference in November. “Every candidate, including me if I become chancellor or top candidate, will have to face a secret ballot so that we get an honest vote,” said Habeck. “If politicians want to regain the loss of trust that we have also registered, then people have to face an honest debate.”