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Greens surge amid heavy losses for Germany’s ruling parties in EU election

Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right bloc was leading in European elections in Germany, exit polls showed Sunday, but the score was shaping out to be a historic low, while the Greens recorded a surge.

Published: 26 May 2019 17:56 CEST
Greens surge amid heavy losses for Germany's ruling parties in EU election
The Greens' Annalena Baerbock and Katrin Göring-Eckard celebrate after the exit polls were announced. Photo: DPA

Merkel's Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and allies Christian Social Union (CSU) were set to garner around 28 percent, two separate polls by national broadcasters ARD and ZDF showed, sharply under their 35.3 percent in 2014.

READ ALSO: 'Brexit will hinder AfD success': What you need to know about the EU elections in Germany

Her coalition partner SPD was also headed for its poorest showing in an EU poll with around 15.5 percent, as the centre-left party was knocked from second position by the Greens, which surged to between 20.5 and 22 percent.
 
The far-right AfD was set to improve on their 2014 score of 7.1 percent, with exit polls seeing it coming in at around 10.5 percent.
 
Meanwhile, broadcaster ARD predicted that the turnout for the elections in Germany was about 59 percent. In 2014 it was about 48 percent.

Exit polls showed the Greens had surged into second place behind the CDU/CSU.

Latest surveys have suggested that the climate crisis has overtaken immigration as the main worry.
 
Illustrating the shift, the Greens were forecast to be heading for an all-time high score which is double that of their 2014 showing.
 
“It's the first time that climate change has played such a role in an election,” said Greens chief Robert Habeck.
They tweeted to say they thank you to everyone who had voted for them, while pictures emerged of party members celebrating the result.
 
Ska Keller, who was leading the Greens' list, pledged that “we must now implement (our proposals) on climate change”.
 
Jörg Meuthen, AfD top candidate with supporters when the exit poll was announced. Photo: DPA
 
School strikes by students joining young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg's protests on Fridays have given momentum to the cause.
 
The environmental party may have also benefited from the impact of an online assault by a young German YouTuber against Merkel's CDU party days before the vote.
 
Accusing the Christian Democratic Union of not doing enough against global warming, the almost one hour long blistering attack has been viewed more than 11 million times by Sunday.
 
This graphic shows how the under 30s in Germany voted: overwhelmingly for the Greens.
The leadership of both Merkel's centre right and the SPD voiced disappointment at their scores.
 
CDU and CSU supporters in Berlin after the first exit polls. Photo: DPA
 
But both were at pains to stress that they are not about to break up the coalition.
 
CDU party general secretary Paul Ziemiak told ZDF the coalition “must go on so that there is stability in Germany,” stressing that for his party, “it's about the country and not party political questions”.
 
Separately, his counterpart at the SPD, Lars Klingbeil said the result “cannot remain without consequences”.
 
But he said he “would advise against any personnel discussion”, in what appeared to be a move at batting down rumours of a putsch being planned against party chief Andrea Nahles.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Norway flirts with the idea of a ‘mini Brexit’ in election campaign

On paper, Norway's election on Monday looks like it could cool Oslo's relationship with the European Union but analysts say that appearances may be deceiving.

Published: 11 September 2021 14:08 CEST
Norway flirts with the idea of a 'mini Brexit' in election campaign
The Centre Party's leader Slagsvold Vedum has called for Norway's relationship with the European Union to be renegotiated. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB / AFP

After eight years of a pro-European centre-right government, polls suggest the Scandinavian country is headed for a change of administration.

A left-green coalition in some shape or form is expected to emerge victorious, with the main opposition Labour Party relying on the backing of several eurosceptic parties to obtain a majority in parliament.

In its remote corner of Europe, Norway is not a member of the EU but it is closely linked to the bloc through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.

The deal gives Norway access to the common market in exchange for the adoption of most European directives.

Both the Centre Party and the Socialist Left — the Labour Party’s closest allies, which together have around 20 percent of voter support — have called for the marriage of convenience to be dissolved.

“The problem with the agreement we have today is that we gradually transfer more and more power from the Storting (Norway’s parliament), from Norwegian lawmakers to the bureaucrats in Brussels who are not accountable,” Centre Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in a recent televised debate.

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Defending the interests of its rural base, the Centre Party wants to replace the EEA with trade and cooperation agreements.

However, Labour leader Jonas Gahr Store, who is expected to become the next prime minister, does not want to jeopardise the country’s ties to the EU, by far Norway’s biggest trading partner.

“If I go to my wife and say ‘Look, we’ve been married for years and things are pretty good, but now I want to look around to see if there are any other options out there’… Nobody (in Brussels) is going to pick up the phone” and be willing to renegotiate the terms, Gahr Store said in the same debate.

Running with the same metaphor, Slagsvold Vedum snapped back: “If your wife were riding roughshod over you every day, maybe you would react.”

EU a ‘tough negotiating partner’

Initially, Brexit gave Norwegian eurosceptics a whiff of hope. But the difficulties in untangling British-EU ties put a damper on things.

“In Norway, we saw that the EU is a very tough negotiating partner and even a big country like Britain did not manage to win very much in its negotiations,” said Ulf Sverdrup, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

While Norwegians have rejected EU membership twice, in referendums in 1972 and 1994, a majority are in favour of the current EEA agreement.

During the election campaign, the EU issue has gradually been pushed to the back burner as the Centre Party — which briefly led in the polls — has seen its support deflate.

The nature of Norway’s relationship to the bloc will depend on the distribution of seats in parliament, but experts generally agree that little is likely to change.

“The Labour Party will surely be firm about the need to maintain the EEA agreement,” said Johannes Bergh, political scientist at the Institute for Social Research, “even if that means making concessions to the other parties in other areas”.

Closer cooperation over climate?

It’s possible that common issues, like the fight against climate change, could in fact bring Norway and the EU even closer.

“Cooperation with the EU will very likely become stronger because of the climate issue” which “could become a source of friction” within the next coalition, Sverdrup suggested.

“Even though the past 25 years have been a period of increasingly close cooperation, and though we can therefore expect that it will probably continue, there are still question marks” surrounding Norway’s future ties to the EU, he said.

These likely include the inclusion and strength of eurosceptics within the future government as well as the ability of coalition partners to agree on all EU-related issues.

Meanwhile, Brussels is looking on cautiously. The EEA agreement is “fundamental” for relations between the EU and its
partners Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, according to EU spokesman Peter Stano.

But when it comes to the rest, “we do not speculate on possible election outcomes nor do we comment on different party positions.”

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