EActually, the Greens wanted to use their small federal party conference in the Rheinterrasse on Düsseldorf’s Joseph-Beuys-Ufer to focus entirely on their top candidate Mona Neubaur and the transformation on the way to a climate-neutral society two weeks before the North Rhine-Westphalian state elections.
But before Neubaur gets a chance to speak on Saturday, it will be a while. First of all, it has to be clarified whether the base of the party, which once emerged from the peace movement, is following the strictly realpolitik course that its leadership has taken since the brutal Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
“We are quarreling whether we are doing enough”
Party leader Omid Nouripour asserted at the lectern in Düsseldorf: “We will always remain a peace party.” But the situation in Ukraine is forcing the Greens to do things that they would not have done a few weeks ago. As a party to international law and the peace order, the Greens have done a lot to prevent this war from happening. “In the end there was no interest in peace in the Kremlin,” says Nouripour. Now the Greens, as the governing party, are facing reality.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock added in a video message that she was grateful “that our party is taking responsibility at this moment and is willing not to duck away from making decisions about things that have not been on our program so far”. You act and fight at the same time. “We are quarreling as to whether we are acting sufficiently. Because even with these arms shipments, we don’t know when this war will be over.”
The state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia will take place on May 15, 2022. Compare the parties’ answers with your positions.
To the Wahl-O-Mat
The party congress discussed the dramatic consequences of the “turning point”, as Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz put it, for a little over two hours, then the delegates in Düsseldorf voted by a large majority for the delivery of heavy weapons and the 100 billion special fund for the Bundeswehr – although there was a lot of encouragement for the counter-motion of the Green Youth in the debate.
The Greens have taken full responsibility. The fact that Foreign Minister Baerbock and Economics Minister Robert Habeck always publicly state their doubts and scruples, while at the same time acting courageously, is obviously well received: several survey institutes have seen the party stable at 18 percent for weeks. The North Rhine-Westphalian Greens are also benefiting from this trend, pollsters have determined that they have never had less than 14 percent since the end of February.
The party’s largest national branch can expect to achieve the best result in its history on May 15 and become indispensable for the formation of a government. Unlike five years ago, the Greens are no longer ruling out a Jamaica coalition this time.
The fact that public perception has so far been focused on the head-to-head race between the CDU under Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst and the SPD under their top candidate Thomas Kutschaty does not seem to harm the Greens. After the botched campaign by chancellor candidate Baerbock in the federal election campaign, the 44-year-old Neubaur made a conscious decision not to enter the race for the office of prime minister. This not only has to do with the fact that Neubaur – who has led the state association since 2014 – has had neither parliamentary nor government experience so far, but also with the fact that North Rhine-Westphalia has repeatedly proved to be difficult terrain for the Greens.