Greens co-boss Habeck at Lanz: “We got lost communicatively”


Greens co-boss Habeck at Lanz
“We got lost in terms of communication”

By Marko Schlichting

The Greens have a problem: their communication. They have now recognized that. On Wednesday evening, Greens co-boss Robert Habeck commented on Markus Lanz on ZDF – and praised improvement.

He’s sitting in the studio, slightly bruised, with a swollen eye. Nothing bad, a dyke lilac allergy, he lets through. He looks bent, deliberate, thoughtful. There was an eloquent silence when the Greens co-boss Robert Habeck was interviewed by Markus Lanz on ZDF on Wednesday evening. It’s about the book by Annalena Baerbock with the title “Now – How we renew our country” and about the plagiarism allegations that Baerbock has been exposed to since its publication.

The situation is not suitable for big words. After Annalena Baerbock was nominated as Green Chancellor candidate, the party lost massive support. In the meantime, numerous surveys have shown that citizens consider their colleague Robert Habeck to be the better candidate. At the end of the interview, he will say that he will continue to take on political responsibility. Just not now. But: “I have no idea what will be in four years.”

“Bad communicative”

He was on vacation last week, camping. He didn’t notice much, says Habeck. But it is clear to him: “In the past week we got completely lost in terms of communication and reacted inappropriately.” Honesty is the principle of the Greens: “Our job is not to tell people shit.”

There was a central mistake, and that was in dealing with the critics of the Baerbock book, “where we were not in the right to subject political competitors to moral discredit”.

“Shot backfired”

He read the book very early, says Habeck. When he heard about the first mistakes, he thought: “Shit happens”. Today he sees it differently. The book was intended to explain the “driving forces behind politics and engagement” by Annalena Baerbock. “That backfired,” Habeck sums up.

The Greens co-party leader finds it difficult to say that authors never wrote books alone. The politician used to be a writer. He explains that if you want to write a book, you have to learn a lot and you have to spend a lot of time alone at your desk. Not every book is a brilliant achievement. Annalena Baerbock’s book was a political book, but not a scientific paper. Something like this could also arise in the context of conversations. But Habeck is clear: the work was done improperly. The publisher has announced that there will be a list of sources in a new edition. Such a directory should be updated as quickly as possible in e-books.

“Build up trust”

In any case, Habeck does not want to give up the elections yet. “We have to build trust again now,” he says. “We have suffered a loss of confidence. But we can make up for that.” Habeck does not believe in Baerbock’s resignation from the candidacy for chancellor. “We should try to finalize the election campaign as successfully as we can,” he says.

At the end of the conversation, one thing was confirmed: Habeck has a talent for communication. He perfectly demonstrated that you can eat chalk without choking on it. He has credibly managed to apologize for the bad work the Greens have done over the past few weeks, without failing to be optimistic. The road to regaining trust will be rocky. Habeck has taken this path.

.