AmericanEUrophile

The Greens will eventually destroy themselves from within

Posted by American EUrophile on 08/09/11

In the end, The Greens will learn what happens to a party that forgets who they are.

On Sunday, the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania went to the polls and rejected Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, a victory for the Social Democrats who came in with 36% of the vote. However, the story that everyone is talking about is how the Greens doubled their vote to 8.5%—an apparently tremendous accomplishment in this particular state. But am I the only one to realize this isn’t a Green Party, but a moderately ecological social democratic party?

The Green Party was found in 1980 by a group of environmentalists and civil rights activists, many who were involved in the 1968 protests (The Greens’ current European leader, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, was considered the movement’s leader). Their founding principles were, “Opposition to pollution, use of nuclear power, NATO military action, and certain aspects of industrialised society..” All of these issues have one thing in common: they are “one-election” issues. For example, if you were to run for office in the United States and were opposed to the war in Iraq, that would have helped you in 2006, but not necessarily in 2008 or 2010. In short, The Greens have been successful because of mundane coincidences of politics.

So how are they winning now? Simple. They’ve moved to the center and have hijacked a wave of frustration that Germans have with the current political climate—a wave the Social Democrats should be leading.

Why The Greens will ultimately fail: In the process of trying to win elections, The Greens have become a party they are not. Like all parties of the left, The Greens rely on activists going door to door. What motivates green activists is not the centrist, cocktail party policy of the Social Democrats—or else they would have been going door to door for the party that actually has a chance of winning—they’re motivated by saving the planet. The Greens will soon learn this cannot be the agenda of a federal government. In fact, they admit this now, but that isn’t what they’re saying at party meetings with activists, I guarantee you. Once elected in a German state, as they recently were in Baden-Württemberg, they will disappoint their base of activists, who will eventually abandon the party until new leadership comes.

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11 Responses to The Greens will eventually destroy themselves from within »»

pipeloentje

Comment by pipeloentje | 2011/09/09 at 14:07:11

Very interesting article, and certainly there are risks for smaller political powers to suddenly become much stronger, however I do not see the original Green goals as a set of one time election issues, and also all other major (and smaller) political movements have also evolved in the last 30 years (realigning their priorities to current issues), even much more dramatically than the Greens. I see another risk for Greens, namely that saving the planet is on the agenda of most political parties in Europe to some extent. So what will their next main message be? As the “quickly save the planet” message has lost its uniqueness. Their leftist and social side comes from the criticism of the industrialised society, so I find that the Greens natural place on the centre-left, where they have mainly positioned themselves. I also do not see any problems with challenging older leftist movements. As similar challenging is also going on on the right. All in all, I share your worries for the Greens, but perhaps in a slightly different way ) Have a nice weekend!
Carol

Comment by Carol | 2011/09/09 at 15:06:45

The Green Party in Germany as much as anywhere else is a vessel for rejection of the other parties in politics, and just as they were a failed force in Ireland they will fail as a force in Malta in the UK in Germany or any where else for that matter.

Why? Well the reasons are simple.

The “Greens” expound a serious issue of common sense about using the Earth’s Resources with thoughts about the future that extends beyond the traditional terms of any Government. However their ideals are always at the mercy of becoming main stream when they become adopted by the other parties as a policy provided they are seen as a votes winner.

In this therefore there have been some decidedly bad results and none more so than in Ireland with its idiotic strategy against the Governments’ policy on the forward management and treatment of Municipal Solid Waste in Dublin and Cork by incineration. Their failure to exercise their prerogative on this matter as well as others confirmed their ineptness in Government and the rest of the Green Party Movement around the EU should take note.

And if you think that this is an isolated issue take a look at Alternativa Demokratika (the Green Party) in Malta. They have a unique opportunity to take control in the power of Government in the General Elections that are scheduled for 2014 simply because the two rivalling Parties to Government the Nationalist Party and the Labour Party are split across the country on a knife-edge of a majority of 1 and their mandate for continuance rests on Green (Environmental) issues. All that the Green Party in Malta can do is proffer weak excuses as to why they should be considered viable by offering up the Environmental Policies which they have a mandate for whilst decrying the two traditionalist parties. As a consequence their ideas – much like any others in the EU – are being treated as those arising from a Pressure Group “of Tree-Hugging Activists!” Is it any wonder then that because the Green Agenda is not being fully brought to the proper public forum in a country as small as Malta that they are being ignored.

Here there is an example of a Small and Influential Nation sitting in the heart of Europe and also in the middle of the Mediterranean as well as being fledged to the SIDS countries that can make a mark for itself by proposing sound environmental policies but it doesn’t.

The public, there, in Malta, are as sceptical about Green Issues as much as they are elsewhere across the World for fear of the unknown. But they must not be so worried about that issue for it is the very same one that has occurred throughout the rest of the EU when the dominant (or pre – 2004) EU Nations try to convince the newer EU Nations that what they have previously built – in for example waste treatment using expensive and highly controversial incineration plants – cannot be planted across and used in the smaller nations simply because they have had these for a few years for that stifles logic of investigations relating to new developments and inovatation in building green alternatives.

The legacy of this “seeing something real and tangible working elsewhere in these “so-called senior or reference” countries has been the scourge of the use of the more environmentally friendly (greener) technologies in Waste Treatment for over 10 years and it has stifled the natural developments that have arisen through making bioethanol from waste that is being pioneered by Genesyst and ST1. As a result we see the same old processes being repeated time and time again at phenomenal costs to the World’s Developing Economies with the result that they have to go cap-in-hand to the Development Banks for support funding. It is this approach that has resulted in the newer (post 2004) EU countries having to rely so heavily on Cohesion or re-Structuring Funds to bring long overdue social and environmental developments forward.

In the wider sense this is also repeated in places as far afield as China and Chile to suffer the same way for these very institutions of finance use advisors from these same senior countries.

So what is the issue? Firstly there is a real recognition across the World that the Green Party purely a Pressure Group agenda. Everything which the Green Parties proffer as being acceptable could, eventually, become main stream in due course, provided they are cost effective. Not all Green Policies are more expensive than their equivalents in the status quo or “do nothing scenario” particularly if they are promoted over the longer time frame, and in that beyond the narrowness of a single term of Government for that is the one thing that sets the Green Parties across the World as being different. The Green Party movement must claim back its role as being more than Green, and here there is the contradiction if not a dichotomy of issues. The Green Party movement needs to be Different to the “Other” or “Main-Stream” Parties as well as being similar. It has to court the votes of the Broad-Sheet Newspaper readers as well as the Tabloid Newspaper Readers: it has to court the whole range of employment from the unemployed through manual and technocrat workers through executives into high businesses and beyond. It must be able to affect All and be meaningful beyond its current image. The failure of the Green Party in recent European National Elections and EU elections to grasp but a few marginal seats is not good enough. It did not work in Ireland where it held the sway of power for less than a Government term. It has not held itself up to account for more than a few years in any provincial municipal area and as it is going forwards it will not.

The Green Agenda was pre-heralded at the beginning of the 20th Century by Svante Arrhenius but no-one seems to realise that it actually started before. That early legacy will be bypassed if it is ignored.

So what should the Green Party followings do? Make your mind up and go forward for as it is your current format is to revert back to the Tree-Hugging do-gooders that heralded the Green Peace issues and the Whaling debacle of the late 20th Century. I do not think that that is what you want: or do you?
American EUrophile

Comment by American EUrophile | 2011/09/09 at 21:17:31

@pipeloentje– They have not just been taking votes from the Social Democrats. They have also won conservative support for killing rail projects that would have demolished older buildings.

Carol–I’m not a Green, I’d consider myself on the left of the European Liberals.

I do not think Ireland is a good example. The GP there had the misfortune of being in THAT specific Irish government with Fianna Fail.

For the most part I agree with you. But the problem isn’t the Green agenda, but the type of supporters it has. Do you think GP supporters will stick by a party that supports a lower corporate tax rate—which is needed in many EU states?

Another reason they will fail: inexperience. Do you want a group of people who think whale hunters should be prosecuted in the ICC to run your country’s fianances?
American EUrophile

Comment by American EUrophile | 2011/09/09 at 21:21:32

Obviously my last sentence was in jest to describe extreme views of some Greens. I have been surprised by how moderate (compared to his past) Danny Cohn-Bendit has been. He supported Lisbon etc. but they have begun to cause trouble. They have voted with Farage’s crowd too many times on the bailouts issue.
Edvin

Comment by Edvin | 2011/09/11 at 19:48:53

Greens’ supporters have some things in common, and that’s why they give their vote to the GP. Why is a liberal so much concerned about the future of the Greens?
And, Greens stick to the Greens because of the higher corporate tax policy. Who said that a lower corporate tax is needed in the EU?
American EUrophile

Comment by American EUrophile | 2011/09/11 at 23:58:58

The Greens are not just getting Green votes. They’re getting votes that traditionally go to centrist and socialist parties, ergo, the Greens have moved to the center. Either their core support will leave, or their new supporters will leave. Either way the honeymoon will en

I’m not necessarily concerned about The Greens, just offering my opinion.

The European economy (and the global economy) is in a slump. How is keeping high corporate tax rates–or worse, raising them– going to help?
Carol

Comment by Carol | 2011/09/12 at 10:48:07

How do you react to Mrs Angelika Merkel’s concerns?

If the Green Movement continues to be active in its current way then their policies will become main-stream policies of the other political parties. The UK had that issue in the last general election with the current Conservative Party about voting blue and green at the same time.

I agree that the Ireland debalce was brought on as a result of the failure of generic financial stability in that country – but the Green Party had a chance to systematically change the agenda on some very expensive (alleged unchangeable) mandates that if they had moved to be Green they would have been cheaper as well as Green. The failure of their stance was to take the Green Hem and use it as a forward mandate to save money. The same is happening in the UK with the same ideas.

And all across the EU (and elsewhere( there is a perception that adopting Green Policies will always cost the tax payer money. Take the issue of Renewable Electricity generated from Biomass Burning – a cause celebe in the annals of tax payers – providing huge subsidies to burn wood to make electricity is an absolute nonsense. The only beneficiaries are people like ALCOA (in Italy) or Peel and Powergen or E-ON or RWE or Vivendi, or ONDEO etc who use these masive freebies to feather the nexts of their share-holders at the expense of the tax payers and the general public purchasers who arte politely advised that the premium costs for their electricity and gas includes a 15% renewable element. Phooey, Oettinger and his colleagues in the EU know absolutely that the system is being milked by these mega-companies to the detriment of the public. And the same is being repeated with the ludicrous move to subsidise CCS by the EU at €Billions of expenditure to the Oil Companies (!!!!!!!!!) so that they can claim credentials for adhering to policy and using this as an excuse to extract even more oil and gas (fossil fuels) from their rapidly depleting stores.

The implosion of the Green Movement which is being seen is a reaction to this idea that it will cost more and with a very skeptical public who can blame them.
Edvin

Comment by Edvin | 2011/09/13 at 13:25:40

I am Green and I don’t see why I should live if other people like the green ideas and vote for them. It is the opposite, I like that. Although i am Green, that doesn’t mean that I agree with all the ideas that other Greens have. Being Green doesn’t mean being a copycat of the other Greens. The same can apply for the centrists and socialists. I might not like some of their ideas, but we concur in some other points. Diversity if key for the success of an organization, and a party, and the Greens have applied this since their beginning. By getting votes and ideas from other groups, it shows that Greens stand to their ideals, and that their party will improve and not fall in the groupthink where the other parties have fallen.
American EUrophile

Comment by American EUrophile | 2011/09/25 at 15:28:43

Green activists who are the heart of the party will not support a party that moves away from central, and founding principles as they would be forced to in a coalition government with the Social Democrats.

There is a difference between being “Green” and being “a Green.” I care for the enviornment, but I don’t think recovery is the time to introduce carbon taxes, or worse, reactionary economic policies like raising the corporate tax.
Edvin

Comment by Edvin | 2011/09/26 at 21:12:37

That is it! Greens’ platform is not a platform only focused on environment, but also on other areas of life (surely keeping in mind the environment as well).
Jace Satterlee

Comment by Jace Satterlee | 2012/02/05 at 14:50:26

I cannot thank you enough for the article. Want more.