German Green Party
\n
Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, the
Green Party is a
political party in
Germany whose regional predecessors were founded in the late
1970s as part of the new social movements. In 1980 the party was founded as "Die Grünen" on a federal level in West Germany. It was one of the first successful
green parties. In 1989 and 1990 numerous civil rights groups in East Germany combined to form "Bündnis 90", which merged with "Die Grünen" in 1993. Since 1998, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen are part of the
coalition government on the national level.
Current Events
The only party convention in 2003 was planned for November 2003, but ca. 20% of the local organisations forced the federal party to held a special party convention early to discuss the party position in regard to the Agenda 2010, a major reform of the German social security systems planned by chancellor Schröder.
The November 2003 party convention was held in Dresden and decided about the election plattform for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The German Green list for these elections is headed by Rebecca Harms (currently leader of the Green parliament party in Lower Saxony) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, currently Member of the European Parliament for Les Verts. The Greens expect to gain at least 10 seats in the elections. The November 2003 convention is also noted because it was the first convention of a German political party ever using an electronic voting system.
History
1970s: Foundation
In the late 1970s, environmentalists and peace activists organized politically as the Greens (Die Grünen). Opposition to expanded use of nuclear power, to NATO strategy, and to certain aspects of highly industrialized society were principal campaign issues. Important figures in the first party years were amongst others Petra Kelly and Joseph Beuys.
1980s: Parliamentary representation on the federal level
The party first won seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, in 1983; after some success in state level and European parliament elections. The Greens received 8.3% of the vote in the January 1987 West German national election.
1990s: German reunification, fall out of parliament
However, in the December 1990 all-German elections, the Greens in western Germany were not able to clear the 5% hurdle required to win seats in the Bundestag. It was only in the territory of the former GDR that the Greens, in a merger with Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90) (a loose grouping of civil rights activists with diverse political views), were able to clear the 5% hurdle and win Bundestag seats. In 1994, Greens from East and West returned to the Bundestag with 7.3% and 49 seats.
1998-2002: Greens as governing party, first term
\nIn 1998, despite a slight fall in their percentage of the vote (6.7%), the Greens retained 47 seats and joined the federal government for the first time in coalition with the Social Democrats. Joschka Fischer became vice chancellor and foreign minister in the new government, which had two other Green ministers (Andrea Fischer, later Renate Künast, and Jürgen Trittin).
In 2001, the party experienced a crisis as some Green Members of Parliament refused to back the government's plan of sending soldiers to help with the 2001 U.S. Attack on Afghanistan. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called a vote of confidence, tying it to his strategy on the war. A few Green MPs voted against the government, but not enough to bring the government down. In terms of the party's popularity, however, this crisis was not as important as the disappointment of the party's pacifist supporters when the coalition government supported intervention in Kosovo in 1999. In the regional elections from 1999-2001 the party consistently lost seats in the provincial parliaments (Landtage).\n
2002-...:Greens as governing party, second term
In 2002, the Greens increased their total to 55 seats (in a smaller parliament) and 8.6%. One of the MPs who had voted no confidence, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was directly elected to the Bundestag as a district representative for the Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain constituency in Berlin, becoming the first Green to ever achieve this in Germany. The coalition government with the Social Democrats was renewed, with Joschka Fischer as foreign minister, Renate Künast as minister for consumer protection, nutrition and agriculture, and Jürgen Trittin as minister for the environment.
One internal issue in 2002 was a long and old discussion about the question of whether members of parliament should be allowed to become members of the party executive. Two party conventions declined to change the party statute. The necessary majority of two thirds wasn't reached by a very small margin. As a result, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth (who had been elected into parliament that year) were no longer able to continue in their executive function. The new chairpersons are former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former MP Angelika Beer. The party then held a member referendum on this question in the spring of 2003 which did change the party statute. Now members of parliament may be elected for two of the six seats of the party executive, as long as they are not ministers or caucus leaders. 57 % of all party members voted in the member referendum, with 67 % voting in favor of the change. The referendum was only the second in the history of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, the first having been held about the merger of the Greens and Bündnis 90.
Related articles
Literature about the German Green Party
- Frankland, E. Gene / Schoonmaker, Donald (1992): Between Protest & Power: The Green Party in Germany. Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press. \n* Raschke, Joachim (1993): Die Grünen: Wie sie wurden, was sie sind. Köln: Bund-Verlag. \n* Raschke, Joachim (2001): Die Zukunft der Grünen. Frankfurt am Main / New York: Campus. \n* Veen, Hans-Joachim / Hoffmann, Jürgen (1992): Die Grünen zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre. Profil und Defizite einer fast etablierten Partei. Bonn / Berlin: Bouvier. \n* Wiesenthal, Helmut (2000): "Profilkrise und Funktionswandel. Bündnis 90/Die Grünen auf dem Weg zu einem neuen Selbstverständnis", in Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B5 2000, S. 22-29.
External links
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Category:German political parties\nCategory:Green political parties
