“The Greens are present in 11 Länder governments, they have territorial roots“, recalls Monday, September 27 on franceinfo Marie Krpata, researcher at the Study Committee for Franco-German Relations at IFRI, while”Grünen“are considered as”chancellor makers“German parliamentary elections on Sunday, September 26, 2021. The Social Democrats of the SPD came out on top, collecting 25.7% of the vote. They have a short lead over the Christian Democrats of the CDU (24.1%) The Greens come third with 14.8% of the vote, so they will be the key to the future new coalition at the head of the country.
franceinfo: Are the Greens in a comfortable position after the German legislative elections?
Marie Krpata: Yes, the Greens made an interesting score with 14.8% of the votes obtained. It is still a rise of 5.9 percentage points compared to the last election. So obviously, in May we credited the Greens with 24% in voting intentions, tied with the CDU. So the Greens lost everything during the election campaign, thanks to a number of scandals. But today, indeed, they can impose themselves as kingmakers, for example in a coalition “traffic light” [rouge-vert-jaune] between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP. That is quite possible.
Despite everything, this is an ambiguous position, because with the SPD, there are indeed a lot of subjects on which there are overlaps, in particular the energy and digital transition, and in the social one. On this, there are points of similarity between the SPD and the Greens. On the other hand, the question that will arise is that of the FDP. What is the interest of the FDP?
By whom are the German Greens carried?
They are much more represented in West Germany than in East Germany. They are worn by qualified urban youth, by well-to-do, educated people. So in the Eastern Länder, where the coal industry is traditionally more present, they are much less represented, for example. They are present today in 11 of the 16 Länder governments. In three governments they appear in two-party coalitions and in eight governments they appear in three-party coalitions. So they have a territorial anchorage. The example that is given fairly regularly is that of Baden-Württemberg, where they are in a coalition with the CDU. This Land is highly industrialized, there is one of the country’s three automotive clusters. So indeed, it also shows that the Greens have both a fringe of idealists and on the other hand, a fringe of pragmatists who, in fact, have ambitions to govern.
Without any clear winner in these elections, will it be difficult to conduct politics in the next few years in Germany?
Everything will depend on the next coalition. Will we really have a three-party coalition or will we ultimately have a two-party coalition? I recall that in 2017, there was already a discussion around the formation of a “Jamaican” coalition [noire-vert-jaune], with the CDU, the Greens and the FDP, which ultimately led to nothing but a grand coalition. So these are six month long negotiations that ultimately resulted in nothing but a coalition between the CDU and the SPD. At the end of these negotiations, we will really have to see which government will prevail. Indeed, we can expect long months of negotiations, until December, maybe even next year. The SPD is rather inclined to accelerate the process but we will have to see. You have to achieve a majority, that’s the problem.
