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Germany’s Greens propose new climate protection ministry with veto power

Germany's Green party said Tuesday that it would seek to introduce a new climate protection ministry with the power to veto government policies if it becomes part of the next coalition following September's general elections.

Published: 3 August 2021 17:29 CEST

Germany's Greens propose new climate protection ministry with veto power

Green leader Annalena Baerbock on Tuesday. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld

The proposed new ministry would be able to veto proposals of any nature from other ministries which were “incompatible” with the aims of the Paris climate accord of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, said Annalena Baerbock, the party’s candidate running for Angela Merkel’s post.

“This is about finally taking on the huge, century-defining task of becoming climate neutral,” said Baerbock as she presented the Greens’ climate protection programme at an event in a nature reserve in Biesenthal, just outside Berlin.

“The climate crisis is not an abstract idea, it is happening right here among us,” she added, pointing to recent deadly floods which claimed nearly 200 lives in western Germany.

If they were voted into government, the ecologists said they would set up a climate task force to speed up policy-making in the first 100 days of the new coalition, to be overseen by the new climate ministry.

The ministry would also be able to shoot down suggestions from other ministries if they were “incompatible with Paris”, said Baerbock.

“The pressure to act is high,” said the environmental party’s co-leader Robert Habeck, adding that climate protection affected all other political issues.

The party also announced its intention to set up a “climate budget” of around 15 billion euros, introduce higher carbon prices and bring forward Germany’s planned coal exit by eight years to 2030.

*German Greens’ co-leaders Robert Habeck and Annalene Baerbock. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Kay Nietfeld*

The Greens are currently polling second behind Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance as Baerbock and CDU leader Armin Laschet vie to succeed the departing veteran chancellor in September.

Having briefly led the polls in the spring, the Greens have long since slipped behind the conservatives after a series of blunders derailed Baerbock’s campaign.

A recent survey by pollsters Forsa put them five points behind the CDU/CSU on 21 percent, while Yougov have them 12 points behind on 16 percent.

The plans announced on Tuesday were slammed as a “bureaucratic muddle of bans” by the leader of the liberal FDP party Christian Lindner.

Yet they met with a less critical response from Laschet and social-democrat candidate and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who were both visiting flood-hit area on Tuesday.

“We must do everything we can to stop man-made climate change,” said Scholz.

Germany’s current right-left coalition passed a new climate change law in 2019, which included a new target to become climate neutral by the middle of the century.

Yet they were forced to improve on that target in May after Germany’s highest court ruled they were not ambitious enough to protect the rights of younger generations.

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Wagenknecht has caused a stir in Germany by calling for negotiations with Putin, an end to the government’s support for Ukraine and a radical crackdown on immigration.

But BSW won an impressive 6.2 percent in June’s European Union elections and looks set to pick up between 15 and 20 percent of the vote on Sunday in Saxony and Thuringia.

At a rally in her hometown of Jena, Wagenknecht spoke passionately about her upbringing in East Germany and “the fear that nuclear bombs could fall here in Europe”.

“Now the fear is back,” she said.

BSW wants to stop weapons deliveries to Ukraine and rejects plans to allow the United States to periodically station long-range missiles in Germany.

Wagenknecht also called for tougher immigration laws, days after a Syrian man allegedly stabbed three people to death in the western city of Solingen.

BSW wants to “reverse” the current government’s immigration policy, she said.

“We cannot welcome the whole world in Germany.”

‘Kingmaker’

Opinion polls for Sunday’s elections have the far-right AfD as the biggest party in Thuringia on around 30 percent, while in Saxony it is running neck-and-neck for first place with the conservative CDU.

The AfD is also leading the polls in a third former East German state, Brandenburg, set to hold an election later in September.

However, the AfD is unlikely to come to power in any of these states, even if it wins, as other parties have ruled out collaborating with it to form a majority.

This could leave the mainstream parties scrambling to form ruling coalitions — and Wagenknecht’s party could end up being the kingmaker.

Leader of left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) Sahra Wagenknecht waves as she arrive for an election campaign rally in Saxony, on August 20, 2024 in Zwickau, eastern Germany, ahead of the state election in Saxony being held on September 1, 2024. Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP

Speaking to AFP, Wagenknecht said the upcoming elections would be “very important” for her party.

“If we make our entrance into each of these regional parliaments with a score in double figures, we will no longer be seen as just a media phenomenon but as a party destined to change our country’s politics,” she said.

Indeed, the “interesting question” about the regional elections will be “how strong the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance will be in the end”, said Marianne Kneuer, a professor of politics at the Dresden University of Technology (TU Dresden).

“It is possible that BSW could become an important factor in forming a coalition in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony,” said Kneuer, predicting that the new party could also enter the national parliament for the first time next year.

‘Completely absurd’

Wagenknecht told AFP she accepted that “Putin started a war contrary to international law” but said the “West has its share of responsibility”.

“We could have avoided this conflict if we had taken Russia’s security concerns seriously,” she said.

She rejected allegations of pro-Russian false information being spread by some members of her party, saying it was “shameful to accuse us of that”.

“We are accused of being the voice of Moscow or of representing Russian positions because we are in favour of peace negotiations, which is completely absurd,” she said.

On immigration, Wagenknecht pointed to Denmark’s restrictive policy as an example Germany could follow.

“They have drastically reduced their numbers by signalling to the whole world that there is no hope of staying there if your asylum application is rejected,” she said.

Some have pointed out that BSW’s positions on Ukraine and immigration are broadly similar to those of the AfD, but Wagenknecht has ruled out any kind of collaboration with the far right.

“The AfD has a very radical right-wing faction, especially in the east,” she said. Her party cannot “go into coalition with people who have an ethnic nationalist ideology”.

At the rally in Jena, 83-year-old retired nurse Margit Hoffmann said “the most important thing for me is peace”.

“German public funds should go on other things, not weapons deliveries,” Hoffmann said as she leaned on her walking frame.

By Léa PERNELLE with Céline LE PRIOUX in Berlin