Greens after the election: Five is one too many

Berlin taz | His fans don't want to let Robert Habeck go. In his desperation, one has even started a petition, which has almost 70,000 signatures on the WeAct platform. "We are turning to you because we are convinced that Germany, Europe and the world need you," it says. "Bearers of hope must not go when they are needed most." Robert, stay with us!

But it doesn't help. Habeck has made his decision not to seek a top office after his election defeat. The only thing he has left open is whether he will keep his Bundestag mandate. The parliamentary group is not trying to change his mind: It is important to respect the fact that Habeck decides what he does himself, said parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann on Tuesday before a meeting with outgoing, re-elected and new Green MPs.

The only thing that remains to be clarified is what will become of Annalena Baerbock once the new government is in office and she has left the Foreign Ministry. Unlike Habeck, she has not announced that she will withdraw from the front row. However, the Greens have few top jobs available in the opposition.

Although party leader Franziska Brantner has been criticized by the left wing of the party, she and her co-chairman Felix Banaszak were only elected for two years in the autumn. They have already stated that they do not want to give way. At the beginning of the legislative period, only the party leader will be newly elected. The current leadership duo Katharina Dröge and Britta Haßelmann are to be confirmed as acting leaders on Wednesday. Then in a few weeks there will be another election for a two-year term.

The top position is usually filled by equal representation from both wings. Haßelmann would therefore have to make way for the realist Baerbock. However, she does not want to vacate her position either - or at least has not said so publicly yet. On Tuesday, she said of Dröge and herself: "It is certainly not a secret to you that we are very happy to be the parliamentary group leaders. And it is also clear that it is necessary and good to have experience of leading a parliamentary group. And I also believe how passionately we enjoy the task." Everything else will be clarified in the next few weeks.

If push comes to shove, the outcome is uncertain. The Dröge/Haßelmann duo is valued across all parties, not least because of their integrative leadership style. Baerbock, along with Habeck, has the greatest appeal of all the Greens, but if she were to run she would not be able to count on the full support of the parliamentary group: she ran as the vice-top candidate during the election campaign, and a small part of the responsibility for the election defeat has also fallen on her.

So much for the key personnel issues. The Greens also have to clarify substantive issues. The general debate about the strategy for the next few years will drag on for even longer. The more acute question is under what conditions the Greens would agree to a constitutional amendment that Friedrich Merz may be seeking in order to take out large loans for armaments projects. Because of the two-thirds majority required, this is the only point on which they still have some power in the opposition.

When the traffic light coalition set up a special fund after the start of the war in Ukraine, the Greens did not want to limit it to military spending. At the time, they did not prevail. Now they apparently want to take a more steadfast stand. "Why should we [...] only do the right thing for defense?" said Katharina Dröge on Tuesday. Investments are also needed in education, infrastructure and the economy. Instead of another exception for armaments, she is calling for a general reform of the debt brake. "That would be the clean proposal," said Dröge.