The post-Merkel period in Germany begins today 19 April 2021, in Berlin, at Platz vor dem Neuen Tor, number 1, where the headquarters of the German greens. Their Council meets to decide the name of candidate for chancellor of the party for the elections of 26 September this year, those which will sanction the definitive farewell of “Mutti” Angela. It will then be their general meeting in June to vote on that name, but it will have been done an important step forward for the start of the election campaign. And, as many bet, towards their victory.
The fact is that it will not be easy to choose that name for the six members of the Council, since the two co-presidents, Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, one of which will have to take a step forward (or backwards), they value each other so much and are so close that they have not been able to decide so far. “You do it”, “No, it's your turn, you are better than me”. Never seen such a thing in politics or anywhere else.
The truth is that both have a chance to win confrontation with the tarnished leaders of the conservatives of the CDU-CSU and the social democrats of the SPD.
He, Robert Habeck, 51, a visionary writer and handsome just as a German is supposed to be handsome, strong jaw and strong chin included, is the most popular politician in Germany after Angela Merkel.
She, Annalena Baerbock, 40, is the most feisty, impressive German female politician, always after Angela Merkel.
Since gender equality is established by statute and not left to the good will of individuals, since 2018 Robert and Annalena they run the Green Party together. Or, to be more precise, "Alleanza 90/The Greens", as the organization has been calling itself since 1993, after the merger of "The Greens", from the West, with "Alleanza 90", from the East.
Poet and philosopher by training, from Lübeck, Habeck he was a minister in both the centre-right and centre-left cabinets in the Land of Schleswig-Holstein, on the border with Denmark, according to the basic doctrine of the Greens: one governs with anyone who agrees to practice just policies for the environment. Passionate and instinctive, he hasn't been on social media for two years because – as he explained – he had noticed that this form of communication had made him "more aggressive, louder and sharper".
The profile for Annalena Baerbock, from Hanover, is very different. An expert in international law, she trained first at the university of her city and then at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. You joined the party in 2005 and rose to the top with strength and determination within a decade, becoming one of its representatives in the federal parliament eight years ago.
Who of the two then? The writer or the legal expert? Until last year Habeck was the favourite. Then, it will be that Merkel's farewell is proving to be more painful than most Germans thought, bookmakers are now betting on her. Choosing Annalena, young, cultured, prepared, brilliant would be like having another Merkel, after Merkel. Although completely different in values and ideas.
Be that as it may, whatever name comes up will be the good one, because on one thing all observers agree, and that is that the future of Germany belongs to the Green Party. Because not only are they starting to tip the balance for any government, but this time they can even aspire to personally lead an executive. This was confirmed by the electoral results of the March elections in two important Regions, Baden Wuttenberg (Stuttgart) and the Palatinate (Mainz) which added fuel to their race: 32,6% in the Land home of cars, from 10 years led by one of their presidents; the doubling of the votes, 9,3%, in what has always been the realm of the social democrats. Not to mention that in 2019, at the European Championships, they obtained 20,5%, a threshold never reached before.
View from Italy, once again Germany seems to be part of another planet. And not only because, to speak only of the Greens, in our latitudes a similar party has never made it through, but above all because the program of the German political formation is the envy of any reformist: strongly pro-European, strongly environmentalist, strongly progressive, strongly liberal and social . They present themselves as the good and moderate face of Germany, the one which, unlike the AfD, the right-wing extremists, sovereignists and populists, is open to the world, respects everyone (for example, they have always defended Italy when it was attacked by the Orthodox rules), and does not close within its borders or even those of Europe.
It hasn't always been like this, but the XNUMXs, when they were born as ecological extremists, are a long way off. Time has profoundly changed them and the proof is in the facts, given that today they rule 11 out of 16 Lands.
They continue to be the staunchest environmentalists, it's in their DNA, but they are no longer just that.
It was the end of the internal division, bro the “realo”, the realists and the “fundis”, the fundamentalists, to make them the political force they are today, the split having been assimilated as a good digestion of different foods which causes great strength in the organism. For example, the goals of the UN Agenda 2030 always remain their compass and they do not accept steps backwards from the Paris climate agreements; but while always demanding Germany's total exit from coal, they understand that it is necessary to do it in stages. While around the environmentalist heart a more complex organism has grown up which fights for social rights, especially those of young people, their great constituents: from studying to housing, to social housing, from work to the enjoyment of free time. And to find the resources to finance this welfare, they are not afraid to ask for taxes from web giants, for example; or, to discourage certain consumption, such as disposables, almost always made of plastic, to put them on those who produce them. In foreign policy are more attentive to values than to trade, which, for example, contrasts them with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which by bringing gas directly from Russia to Germany, passing through the North Sea and not through Ukraine, strengthens the weight of Moscow at a time when the Navalnyi case is casting a terrible shadow over the former country of the Soviets. Same thing for the Chinese: no business - they say - if China doesn't stop enslaving the Uighurs of Xinjiang or taking away the freedoms of the inhabitants of Hong Kong.
Also for the post-Covid period, the Greens have clear ideas: to restart Germany they think it is necessary for the State to get into debt to invest above all in neutral infrastructures, that is, that do not damage the environment. Which translates, for example, into fewer planes for short flights and more trains, focusing on high speed. In Germany, allowing the state to "debt" means breaking a taboo given that the prohibition of borrowing more than 0,35% of GDP each year is written in the Constitution. And that's not the only taboo that the Greens want to break down: together with debt they intend to introduce higher taxation for large estates. A blasphemy at many latitudes.
In short, a real revolution asked for in the polls. It might work, it wouldn't be the first time.
But who will lead it? Robert or Annalena? In the end, the German Greens chose Annalena: she will still be a woman to storm the Chancellery after Angela Merkel.
In turn, the CDU has chosen Armin Laschet as its candidate for the Chancellery after the end of the Merkel era.
