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The Week in Germany: Politics July 15, 2005 Greens tout jobs focus in platform The Greens, the junior partner in Germany's ruling coalition, have kick-started their bid to stay in government with an election platform focused on economic growth and employment instead of the environmental issues that have long been the party's bread and butter.
Facing an uphill battle to avoid a stint in opposition after elections expected in September, the party approved its 40-page manifesto last weekend at a two-day party congress in Berlin. There, the Greens' standard-bearer, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, issued an impassioned call to arms to a party that has by all accounts been caught off guard by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's plan to bring forward elections originally scheduled for next year. Since Schroeder announced his intention to seek an early poll after losing a key regional vote in May, opinion polls have suggested that voters will send the Chancellor's Social Democrats (SPD) packing — with the Greens in tow. Yet in a feisty speech, a hoarse-voiced Fischer last Saturday told delegates that the fight has only just begun, vowing: "We can still turn this race around." "The conservatives view the SPD-Greens government as some sort of 'accident' and think they have a birthright to run Germany," said Fischer, a butcher's son who quit school after 10th grade but went on to become one of Germany's most respected and popular politicians. "They already ordered office furniture but will have to send it all back to the warehouse again." If the Greens were to get the boot, it would leave the party out of government at federal and state level for the first time in 16 years. That is a prospect that has prompted much soul-searching in a party that began 25 years ago as a rag-tag band of environmentalists, peace activists, anti-nuclear protesters and feminists, but is now regarded by many as the party of a well-educated, urban elite.
"Green worries are luxury worries," Thomas Petersen, an analyst at the Allensbach polling institute recently told Newsweek. "When there are no jobs, the ozone hole no longer matters. Indeed, a series of unpopular initiatives — from a complicated deposit scheme for drink cans to an energy policy that has driven the proliferation of gigantic wind mills in once pristine landscapes — has made the Greens seem out of touch with average Germans, who are more worried about paying their bills than saving the world. The party platform introduced last weekend is designed to remedy that impression by demonstrating that the Greens are indeed serious about tackling Germany's stubbornly high jobless rate. It puts measures to boost jobs and growth front and center — with proposals including a plan to cut the non-wage labor costs blamed for discouraging hiring in the service sector. Greens Environment Ministry Juergen Trittin even argues that his party's environmental policies are not hampering Germany's competitiveness — but actually boosting it. "I have been responsible for seven years for one of the core items of industrial policy, the energy policy, and I created with my policy a lot of new jobs," Trittin told the BBC. "More than 130,000 people are working in the field of renewable energies in Germany. So I understand a lot about how to create jobs, and therefore this is not a battle between ecology and economy." It remains unclear whether voters will see Trittin's point. With current polls showing the Greens garnering only 7% of the vote, down from 13% a year ago, the party has its work cut out if it is to avoid learning whether the grass is greener in opposition. Links:
 Schroeder's
Social Democrats unveil platform (from Germany.info)
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