Eit should really be about the economy, inflation and social cohesion. But Robert Habeck is primarily concerned with his party on Friday evening. “We are also subjected to a stress test,” states the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Vice Chancellor, and without saying it, everyone knows what he means. The construction of liquid gas terminals, the ramping up of lignite-fired power plants, the extended operation of two nuclear power plants, which the FDP would like to extend much longer: all of this goes deeply against the DNA of the party. That’s why this party conference in Bonn is also a way of reassuring yourself that the Greens still know what they stand for.
“We don’t need to raise our profile. We don’t have to think about what we were founded for,” Habeck calls out to the 800 delegates in the Bonn Congress Center. The party is a “multi-layered we”, open and closed at the same time. “I’ve never felt so at home, I’ve never been so proud of this party,” says Habeck. At that moment his voice cracked. The applause in the hall gets louder.
Debt brake as “ideologized petty peddling”
At the start of the three-day party conference, the details of the content are rarely discussed. The random speakers are reluctant to criticize the decisions of the Green Ministers in Berlin. One advertises holidays in Bavaria, despite the poor public transport, another criticizes the existence of index rents. A hot autumn may be looming on Germany’s streets. The congress center in Bonn is filled with harmony.
The guest speakers change little about that. As a social democrat, the new DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi is also in line with the Greens. She criticizes the debt brake as “ideologized petty nitpicking”, and if she had her way, the state would not only pay gas customers on account in December, but for another month. All that remains of the speech by BDI President Siegfried Russwurm is that he changed it for the sake of the Greens. “Citizens”, “consumers”, “engineers” – an appreciative whistle, the audience could hardly elicit much more reaction to Russwurm. At the point where the head of the industry association says that the state cannot bear all the burdens of this crisis, Habeck nods in agreement.
Ricarda Lang, the co-chair of the Greens, has previously emphasized that the Greens stand by their responsibility in the federal government. “We make politics for the reality that is there, and not just for the one we wished for,” she says. It is a signal to those who, at least outside the congress center, are expressing their criticism of the federal government. On Friday, the trees on the way from Willy-Brandt-Allee to the congress center will be wearing yellow bands with the inscription “Nuclear power? No thank you!”. The defenders of Lützerath are also there, the village that Habeck and RWE now want to make way for the Garzweiler lignite opencast mine.
Inside, Habeck prefers to emphasize other decisions made by the traffic light coalition: the 49-euro ticket, which is now to come as the successor to the 9-euro ticket, which Transport Minister Volker Wissing from the FDP has taken care of. The twelve euro minimum wage, the citizen’s allowance, animal protection label, “it’s worth being in the government,” says Habeck and advises doubters “not to immediately have escape fantasies”. But he also says that it is sometimes just as difficult for him as it is for some members at the grassroots level. “It’s not nice sometimes either.”
