“Green death wish”

The Green Party has failed to learn from past experience that insisting on controversial demands can cost the party dearly in terms of voter approval, Ludwig Greven writes in a commentary for Zeit Online. While the world is “grappling with Donald Trump,” the Paris Agreement “has been shaken” and terrorism and political instability are challenging European cohesion, “the Greens actually make same-sex marriage an indispensable coalition requirement,” Greven writes. “Don’t they have any other woes?” While the party deserved credit for protecting citizen rights by advocating equality for homosexuals, making the demand central to their programme “shows they haven’t quite understood past failures,” Greven argues. The Greens’ traditional insistence on prohibitions, such as a rapid ban of dirty coal plants and combustion engines together with other “red lines” for potential coalition agreements leads Greven to ask “whether the Greens want to govern at all.”

Find the commentary in German here.

See the CLEW dossier Vote2017 - German elections and the Energiewende for more information.