Latest news with #KatharinaDröge
DW
06-07-2025
- Politics
- DW
Germany's Green Party struggling to establish new identity – DW – 07/06/2025
The Greens lost the German election and are no longer part of the government. Now, they want to reposition themselves — and to listen more closely to what the people have to say. Germany is sweltering. Temperatures in Cologne and Hamburg hit 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) earlier this week. Radio stations have been giving advice on how to cope with the hot weather, commenting that a heat wave so early in the summer is very unusual. Climate change is to blame, they say. Its repercussions are being felt more and more keenly, even in central Europe. Surely this is the ideal moment for the Greens to step forward in the public debate on climate protection? The fight against climate change is their core issue, after all. But the party is dealing with internal challenges. Two months after losing their position in government, they're still trying to work out what exactly their role is now, and how best to connect with people around the country — not least on the issue of the current heatwave. The two co-chairs of the Greens parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge, have put forward a strategy paper detailing how they think the Greens should proceed, now that they're in opposition, while emphasizing that this is not a reckoning with the previous party leadership. "We say, very confidently, that being in government was worthwhile," says Dröge. "We made the country more climate-neutral, fairer, more progressive. Now, though, there must be a restructuring of the Greens in opposition." But while certain government decisions continue to stir uproar among some Greens — as when the new Education Minister Karin Prien, of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), banned civil servants from using gender-neutral language — Haßelmann's reaction is restrained. "Who's interested in this?" she said. "For people who are single parents, who have to juggle family and work, who may not even be able to afford one week's holiday, it has little to do with the reality of their lives." Germany's election in February marked a turning point for the Greens. The result was sobering: They gained only 11.6% of the vote, and the dream of another term in government, perhaps in coalition with the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), quickly died. After the election, the party's figureheads — Robert Habeck, vice-chancellor and economy minister, and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock — announced they would be stepping back from front-line politics. Habeck is now just an ordinary member of parliament, while Baerbock has been elected the next president of the UN General Assembly in New York. She will take office in September, a long way from the politics of Berlin, giving up her seat in the Bundestag. The remaining Green leadership figures say they want to bring the party closer to the people. The parliamentary party co-chairs want to reckon with the perception that a large swathe of the population see the Greens as the party that stops them doing things. As an example, they cite Habeck's heating law, which became a PR disaster that left people with the impression that the Greens were trying to force them to install expensive heat pumps, regardless of whether or not they could afford it. Now, the Greens want to do things differently — and to listen better to what people have to say. This could prove difficult, though. The Greens don't have sufficient personnel, especially in the east of the country, to be able to reach people in person. Right now, the Green Party actually has more members than ever — around 180,000 — but only about 14,000 across all five states in the former Eas. And the number of active members is smaller still. When the new German government, a coalition of CDU and SPD, decided to take on new debt of up to one trillion euros to supply the German army and build new roads, schools and train stations, the Greens approved it. They also have few problems with the staunch support the new government wants to give Ukraine in the war against Russia. In exchange for their support for the incoming government's plans, the Greens did manage to negotiate an additional extra money for climate protection over the coming years. Perhaps, says Dröge, there is a way to link the new approach, of listening more closely to the electorate, with the Greens' core brand: Climate protection. "People are suffering in the heat. Older people need protection from it — from the significant health risks. Yet despite this, climate protection still doesn't occupy the [central] role it should," she said of the new government's policies. But combating global warming is not a popular topic with the electorate right now. These are difficult times for the Greens, the former party of you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter, Berlin Briefing.
Local Germany
13-03-2025
- Business
- Local Germany
German MPs to begin debating Merz's spending plans
Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his centre-right CDU/CSU bloc and the centre-left SPD would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. The two parties are currently in talks to form a coalition after February's elections. Fraying Europe-US ties under President Donald Trump have fuelled calls for Germany to quickly boost military funding and reduce its dependency on the US security umbrella, while infrastructure spending is seen as a route to pull Europe's top economy out of stagnation. Vowing to do "whatever it takes", Merz has proposed exempting defence spending from the country's strict debt rules when it exceeds one percent of GDP and setting up a €500 billion fund for infrastructure investments. While the plans have won praise from German allies abroad, who grew weary of inaction under outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Merz faces a desperate scramble to push them through parliament. As the measures involve a change to the constitutionally enshrined "debt brake", which limits government borrowing, they require a two-thirds majority in parliament. This means that the CDU/CSU and SPD want to get them passed before a new parliament convenes later this month in which far-right and far-left parties, who have expressed scepticism about extra defence spending, will be in a position to block the measures. Greens unhappy Debates begin in the Bundestag on Thursday, with a vote on the proposals due on Tuesday next week. But Merz's task got trickier after the Green party, whose votes are needed to reach the two-thirds mark, threatened to torpedo the plans. Although the Greens were in favour of a reform of the "debt brake", the changes proposed by Merz were not the ones needed, Green leader in the Bundestag, Katharina Dröge, told reporters on Monday. Merz and his partners from the SPD were creating a "treasure chest" to fund their political priorities, including tax cuts, Dröge said. Greens MPs Katharina Dröge, Britta Haßelmann, Franziska Brantner and Felix Banaszak leave a press conference before the start of the parliamentary group meeting in the Bundestag. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler "Whoever wants our approval for more investment must also show that it is really about more investment in climate protection, more investment in the economy in this country." The CDU has sought to appease the Greens, saying their concerns are "completely legitimate", and the two sides have been holding talks this week. Merz's plans also face another threat with both the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the far-left Die Linke party having filed legal challenges at the constitutional court, arguing there will be insufficient time for consultations. The AfD won its best ever showing at last month's election, coming second with almost 21 percent of the vote, while Die Linke are set to enter the next parliament after a surprisingly good result. Calls for swift action If Merz fails to get his plans through, observers fear he would lose momentum and his future government could face the same paralysis that beset Scholz's ill-fated, three-party coalition, whose November collapse precipitated last month's vote. The pressure has only increased on Merz in recent weeks as Trump has become increasingly hostile towards Ukraine and made overtures to Russia. The incoming government would still have options to boost spending if the current parliament fails to pass the plans next week, analysts said. Once Merz becomes chancellor -- which could be in late April -- he could suspend the debt brake by invoking an emergency, as the previous government did during the pandemic, according to Berenberg bank economist Holger Schmieding. While it would only be a stopgap, "it would give a new German government time to temporarily raise defence and infrastructure spending while trying to garner a two-thirds majority for a permanent change to the debt brake," he said.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany's massive spending deal in doubt as Greens reject plan
A massive plan to loosen Germany's debt rules and spend hundreds of billions on defence and infrastructure has run into potentially decisive opposition from the Greens, whose votes in parliament would be essential for the legislation to be approved. The spending deal was struck by the conservative Christian Democrat (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc, which won February's German election, and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are expected to become the junior coalition partner in the next government. Green politicians have been warning for days that the massive spending deal does not do nearly enough to address climate change and might be used as a way to finance tax cuts instead of dramatically higher overall spending. Green parliamentary group co-chairwomen Katharina Dröge and Britta Hasselmann confirmed on Monday that they would recommend that Green lawmakers vote against the package. "We are in no way interested in enabling play money, and that is why we will not agree to these proposals," Dröge told reporters. "The package will not finance a single euro more in investments in Germany." Dröge said that the CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD wanted to create a massive fund of borrowed money to put towards things like tax breaks and diesel fuel subsidies for farmers. The Greens have been demanding more funding for climate priorities and greater commitments about how the money would be spent. A failure of the spending deal would be a major setback for the CDU/CSU and SPD coalition talks, which are set to formally get under way soon. Any budget agreement between the two parties would be far more difficult without the deal. Senior CDU/CSU and SPD politicians on Monday expressed confidence that a compromise could still be struck to placate the Greens and get the deal through the Bundestag, the lower house of Germany's parliament. The votes of the Greens are essential to enacting the deal, since Germany's strict balanced-budget rules are anchored in the country's constitution and any changes require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag. Greens to be persuaded? The deal between the CDU/CSU and SPD would create a €500 billion ($542 billion) special fund for infrastructure investments to be spent over the next decade, and enable far higher long-term military budgets by permanently exempting any defence spending above 1% of German gross domestic product (GDP) from counting toward debt rules. Not long after Dröge and Hasselmann made their opposition clear, leaders in the CDU, CSU and SPD signalled their willingness to negotiate with the Greens in order to seal a deal. Carsten Linnemann, the secretary general of the CDU, said he expects negotiations over the deal to move forward with the Greens and described ideas put forward by the Greens as "constructive proposals." CSU deputy leader Alexander Dobrindt, meanwhile, believes the Greens will eventually back down and support the plans. "This will not be the last word from the Greens," he said. "The security situation requires a different approach. We are prepared to negotiate further." SPD leader Lars Klingbeil likewise said he expects to find a compromise with the Greens despite their initial rejection of the deal. "I am not giving up confidence that this can succeed," he said. Klingbeil said he would seek talks with top Green Party politicians on Monday evening along with conservative leader and prospective chancellor Friedrich Merz. The parties are hoping to pass the changes through the outgoing Bundestag in the coming days, since the results of Germany's February election mean that assembling the necessary two-thirds majority will become more difficult once newly elected lawmakers are seated. A deal would then need to be struck with The Left, a hard-left socialist party that has been vehemently opposed to military spending. That would be far more difficult, especially for the conservative CDU/CSU. Leaders of The Left on Monday announced that they had filed an emergency application with Germany's Constitutional Court for a temporary restraining order to block a possible vote on the proposal, which they described as an undemocratic attempt to cast aside the will of German voters. Politicians with The Left said they have long demanded major reforms to Germany's debt rules, and urged the other parties to invite them to talks on spending plans. But Linnemann said he does not believe that the CDU/CSU could reach an acceptable compromise with The Left.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany's Greens threaten to torpedo massive debt spending deal
A massive plan to loosen Germany's debt rules and spend hundreds of billions on defence and infrastructure has run into potentially decisive opposition from the Greens, whose votes in parliament would be essential for passage. Green politicians have been warning for days that the massive spending deal doesn't do nearly enough to address climate change and might be used as a way to finance tax cuts instead of dramatically higher overall spending. Green parliamentary group co-chairwomen Katharina Dröge and Britta Hasselmann said on Monday that they would recommend that Green lawmakers vote against the package. Dröge said that the conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the centre-left Social Democrats wanted to create a massive fund of borrowed money to put towards things like tax breaks and diesel fuel subsidies for farmers. The Greens have been demanding more funding for climate priorities and greater commitments about how the money would be spent. The spending deal was struck by the CDU/CSU, which won February's German election, and the SPD, who are expected to become the junior coalition partners in the next government. But the votes of the Greens are essential to enacting the deal, since Germany's strict balanced-budget rules are anchored in the country's constitution and any changes require a two-thirds majority in the Bundestag, the lower house of German parliament. The deal between the CDU/CSU and SPD would create a €500 billion ($542 billion) special fund for infrastructure investments to be spent over the next decade, and enable far higher long-term military budgets by permanently exempt any defence spending above 1% of German gross domestic product (GDP) from counting toward the debt rules.
Yahoo
04-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German Greens demand immediate €3 billion aid package for Ukraine
The outgoing German government must immediately release billions in aid for Ukraine, the Greens demanded on Tuesday. "Following the scandal in the White House and the reported announcement by the United States that it will freeze support for Ukraine, rapid aid from Europe is more urgent than ever," wrote the leaders of the party's parliamentary group, Katharina Dröge and Britta Hasselmann. The pair were referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky being given a dressing down in front of the cameras in Washington last week by US President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Reports say Trump has now suspended aid. In the letter to the departing Chancellor Olaf Scholz seen by dpa, the politicians urged Scholz to allow €3 billion ($3.2 billion) in aid to be transferred as soon as possible to Kiev as "concrete support for Ukraine's battle for freedom and a message of solidary and European strength." The €3 billion package became a major issue in Germany's election campaign earlier this year, with Scholz refusing to release the aid due to what he called budgetary constraints. Scholz's Social Democrats are now holding exploratory talks with the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union over the formation of a coalition, with the CDU's Friedrich Merz as chancellor. Negotiations are focusing on how to finance a massive increase in military spending amid the dramatic shift in US foreign policy. However, Hasselmann said that the package of aid for Kiev should be passed as soon as possible, by calling a special session of the parliamentary budgetary committee. "Europe must act decisively. Germany must act," she added. "It is our responsibility to secure peace here in Europe."
