Green Youth: “Dear Robert: We do not support this policy”

On site

Jette Nietzard and Jakob Blasel immediately made it clear what to expect from the Green Youth in the future: harsh criticism of the traffic light policy and the Greens in the government. Even if other parties in the traffic light were building really “bad shit,” Nietzard said in Leipzig, where the Green youth came together for a meeting at the weekend, she had to say: “Dear Greens, you’re building it too, the shit!”

The 25-year-old from Berlin, who is committed to helping refugees, and the 24-year-old climate activist from Schleswig-Holstein are the two new leaders of the Green Youth. Nietzard and Blasel didn’t have much time to prepare for this. Surprisingly, her predecessors in office, Katharina Stolla and Svenja Appuhn, resigned at the end of September. The reason: The Greens are not left-wing enough for them. Nietzard and Blasel don’t see it any differently, but – unlike their predecessors – they still have hope that they can change something about it.

To what extent this hope can ultimately be fulfilled is questionable – powerful people at the top of the Greens see things completely differently. Robert Habeck, who is supposed to lead the Greens in the federal election campaign, stands for an unconditional centrist course. The economics minister wants to reach pragmatic Greens and, in the election campaign, also the voters of the old Merkel CDU. Some people are aggressively questioning whether the Greens should even be a left-wing party. “We are clearly a middle-class party,” said Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann recently.

Green Youth: “Show the Greens where the left is”

They don’t want to accept that among the Green Youth – and so Chancellor candidate Robert Habeck can prepare for the fact that there will always be clear criticism from the party’s young people. The watchwords in Leipzig are “international solidarity”, more redistribution, and a more ambitious climate policy. Nietzard said in her application speech that she was already looking forward to the upcoming party conference in November, where “we’ll show the Greens where the left is!”

There, in Wiesbaden, Habeck will presumably be chosen as the candidate for chancellor. In terms of content, one can already expect heated debates. The Greens are in crisis. Due to numerous painful electoral defeats, from the European elections in June to the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, wing fights between the Realos and the left wing have flared up again. For some, the Greens are too ideological, despite many compromises in the government – for example on the issue of migration. The others have moved very to the right, are making politics at the expense of the socially disadvantaged and have not pursued the fight against the climate crisis ambitiously enough.

There is no doubt about how the party’s younger generation sees the matter: the traffic light’s asylum policy in particular is met with bitter resistance. When people in the federal government told her that deportations needed to be done more quickly, “I wanted to scream at them,” says Nietzard. Here they are worried about the rise of right-wing agitation, which Blasel also blames on the Greens in the government.

“Dear Robert: We do not support this policy”

Habeck is repeatedly explicitly addressed, for example when it comes to the supply chain law: “When Robert Habeck says that you should ‘start the chainsaw and bolt the whole thing away’, then that is an attack on all those who suffer from exploitative conditions,” says Blasel. “Dear Robert, greetings from Leipzig: We do not support this policy.” Blasel gets a lot of applause for this.

When it comes to trying to at least somewhat balance out these inner-green differences, Felix Banaszak will be the most important person in the future. After the previous party leadership withdrew, the Bundestag member from the left wing wants to become one of the two new party leaders of the Greens. He is running together with Habeck confidant Franziska Brantner, who is State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Banaszak will stop by the Green Youth on Saturday, sitting on stage with the still incumbent party leader Lang. He tries to build bridges and says he believes that the party stands for something common “in many, many places.” The party is only as strong as possible “if it covers the breadth that it has”. You can position yourself more broadly “without denying yourself all the time.” In the Leipzig plenum they reacted rather cautiously.

In any case, the two new people at the Green Youth leadership want to measure the Green decision-makers against their demands in the future. Nietzard said in her speech that she expects, especially from party leaders and candidates for chancellor, not to make “lazy compromises.” “But stands up for human rights, climate protection and social justice.” They still have hope, it seems in Leipzig. “Radically Confident” is written in the shape of a heart on Blasel’s sweater.