Disgruntled Green Party members in Hesse consider joining new 'Climate list' party

Members of the regional Green Party in central German state Hesse have said they might leave the party and join a new “climate list” due to the regional party leadership’s stance towards the building of a controversial new motorway (Autobahn) project A49 that cuts through the Dannenröder Forest north of Frankfurt, Wolfgang Oelrich reports in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many in the party's rank and file are unhappy and disappointed with Green economy and transport minister Tarek Al-Wazir, who insists that his hands are tied regarding the decision whether the A49 motorway should be built, two regional Green politicians told the reporter. The stretch between “idealism versus realpolitik could tear the party apart”, the author writes - especially since the advent of the new “climate list”, a new party seeking to combine voter and activist groups, for example the Fridays for Future movement, as an alternative to the Green Party. After establishing state parties in the states Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland Palatinate, the climate list took the stage in Hesse at the end of October and is planning to run in the state-wide local elections in March 2021.

Protests against the motorway project in a stretch of woodland that needs to be cleared for constructing the highway, and their dispersal by police, have exposed a deepening rift between climate action protesters and Hesse’s Green Party. The federal Green Party leadership has argued that the autobahn construction project should be stopped and called for a moratorium on new highway construction in the country altogether.