The
Green Parties in Western Europe A Brief History, Their Successes
and Their Problems
By Jürgen
Maier, Federal Executive Committee, Die Grünen,
Germany
May 13th, 1990
1.
The Erosion of Traditional Party Systems
The traditional pattern of the party systems in West European
politics has been eroding since the early 1980's. The capability
of the two main currents of parties, coming either from the
labor movement (Social Democratic, Socialist, and Communist
parties) or from a bourgeois background (Christian Democrats,
Conservatives, and Liberals) to integrate large parts of the
electorate has been continuously decreasing in almost every
Western European country. The reasons for this change are to
be found in the profound social changes in the societies of
all industrial nations since WW2. The issues polarizing the
society are no longer issues that basically stem from the struggle
of the working class to get its fair share of the GNP or even
to over come capitalism. The capitalist core countries in Western
Europe (maybe excluding the UK) saw the gradual erosion of
the "working class identity" and the emergence of
a growing "white collar" sector employed in the tertiary
branches of the economy. Social Democratic parties, particularly
in Germany, had create the notion of "social partnership" between
labor and capital to minimize strikes and social unrest in
general as long as there is enough growth so that labor could
get its share of growth. To put it cynically: trade unions
were turned into a kind of insurance companies for their members.
The unprecedented industrial growth since WW2 led to the gradual
dissolution of socio-political milieus under he hegemony of
either church or the organizations of the labor movement and
the emergence of politically less party-affiliated middle classes.
They expressed themselves in the 1970's as citizen's movements.
They didn't care about this or that ideology or theoretical
explanation of this or that contradiction - they cared for
instance about the nuclear power plant in their backyard that
was threatening heir health.
They were met with ignorance and arrogance by the powers that
be and so were provoked to become an opposition to the traditional
parties. "Now let's vote for ourselves" was one of
the slogans of these days, and green and green-alternative
parties and electoral alliances entered the scene, and right
from the beginning were quite successful.
It was not only the far-reaching changes in the societies of
the industrial nations that led to the crisis of the traditional
party system and its ideologies, there was also the emergence
of new questions and problems that did not easily fit into
the traditional political patterns.
The ecological crisis is
a crisis that affects not one class but the whole of humankind.
In fact, in the 1970's, both conservative and socialist parties
did their best to uphold the ideology of unlimited economic
growth solving all problems against the growing environmental
movements - trade unions often being in the forefront of the
opposition to ecological policies, like the joint manifestations
pro nuclear power of the West German Confederation of Industry
and the IGBE Mineworkers and Energy Union in the 1970's.
Ecology, grassroots democracy, social justice, and non-violence
are the "four pillars" of the Green Party. Some quotes
from the introduction to the Green Party's 1980 founding manifesto: "Ecological
policy rejects exploitative forms of economy and the unscrupulous
plundering of natural resources and raw materials, as well
as the destructive interventions into nature's ability to renew
itself. We believe that the exploitation of nature as well
as human beings must be stopped if we are to master this acute
threat to life on earth." "Both the capitalist and
state-socialist form of concentration and monopolization of
economic power yield destructive forms of economic growth which
contaminate and destroy the very basis of human and natural
life. Only by self-determination at the grassroots, the ecological,
social and economic crises can be appropriately dealt with.
Since we favor self-determination and the free development
of every human being, and since we support the idea that people
should be able to creatively determine their own needs and
wishes free from outside pressure and in harmony with the natural
environment, we strongly support human and democratic rights,
in our country as well as abroad." "Grass roots democracy
call for active and decentralized direct democracy. Our fundamental
belief is that decisions taken at the grassroots must be given
priority. The local level is smaller and more easily accountable
to the people and therefore must be given maximum autonomy
and self-determination.
Grassroots democracy, however, also
requires extensive coordination and organization, if ecological
policies are to be successful against the strong opposition
of the powers that be. We therefore call for more direct democracy
by plebiscites on local, state and federal level." "We
strive for a society free from violence, a society in which
oppression and violence against people by people is abolished.
Humane objectives cannot be achieved by inhumane means. The
principle of nonviolence is valid without exception, be it
within society as a whole, be it between society and minorities,
be it between nations. The principle of non-violence does not
restrict the fundamental rights of self-defense and includes
social resistance in its various forms. In the long run, resistance
can be most effective when conducted in a non-violent way,
as the anti-nuclear movement's example shows. We are absolutely
opposed to the use of force between nations."
2. The First Big Successes: Die Grünen - The Green
Party of West Germany
The most visible and spectacular event symbolizing the decay
of established political structures was the election of the
West German Green Party "Die Grünen" to the
Bundestag in 1983. For the first time in 30 years, a new political
party managed to get the 5% of the popular vote necessary under
Germany's proportional representation electoral system to obtain
seats in the federal parliament. The pictures of bearded, long-haired
MPs without ties sitting next to Chancellor Kohl in Parliament
went around the world.
In January 1990, Die Grünen celebrated the tenth anniversary
of its foundation. In January 1980,the various green lists
and organizations that had been formed in the late 1970's on
local and state level in the FRG met in Karlsruhe to form together
a national party. The origin of this movement was the movement
against nuclear power that emerged in the FRG in the second
half of the 1970's. This movement was opposed to the vast nuclear
power program of the Social Democratic-Liberal coalition government,
equally supported by the Christian Democratic opposition in
the Bundestag, the federal parliament. Environmentalist groups
thus started to run first for local councils, and then for
state parliaments in the late 1970's, a time characterized
by the increasingly repressive policies of the Social Democratic
government of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
The Social Democratic security state alienated a great deal
of the progressive electorate of the SPD. The ecological questions
that emerged at this time were almost equally ignored by all
the three established political parties of the FRG. At the
same time, the environmental movement organized around new
issues, quite different from the issues that mobilized extra-parliamentary
protest in the late 1960's and the early 1970's. It was not
only a student movement, unlike these earlier extra-parliamentary
protest movements, but drew a great deal of its strength from
local residents, ordinary people, opposing projected nuclear
installations in their backyard. Particularly vehement protest
movements emerged at Wyhl near Freiburg in the southwestern
state of Baden-Württemberg and in Gorleben, close to the
GDR border of Lower Saxony.
These movements could not be absorbed or integrated by any
established political party, and so they soon started to set
up their own lists. Since in Germany traditionally every political
party is associated with a certain color, these environmental
lists quickly were labelled "the Greens." This name
was also chosen for the first national election these green
lists contested: the European Parliament elections in 1979.
The Greens - still not a party, but just an electoral coalition
- scored a respectable 3.5% of the vote. According the proportional
representation electoral system of the FRG, any list needs
at least 5% to obtain seats. This barrier for twenty years
served as a formidable, almost impenetrable barrier for new
parties, so this result was seen as quite a success, though
the European Parliament elections are taken less seriously
than other elections. A few months later, the Green List in
the FRG's smallest state, the city-state of Bremen, made it
into the state parliament with just 5.1%. However, this was
basically about the same story as the city council seats green
groups already had obtained in other Northern German cities,
simply the status of Bremen is different. This was not yet
the breakthrough.
In March 1980, the Green Party, now officially founded as a
political party, successfully made it into the state parliament
of the southwestern state of Baden-WHrttemberg with 5.3%. Though
the federal elections in late 1980 yielded only a disappointing
1.5% for the Green Party, the new party had now demonstrated
its ability to make it into state parliaments and that a vote
for the Greens would not be wasted. In the next two years,
the party got seats in the state parliaments of Lower Saxony,
West Berlin, Hamburg, and Hessen. 1981 and 1982 were the years
of the phenomenal rise of the peace movement against the NATO
decision to deploy Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Western
Europe, thus adding a powerful new mobilizing issue to the
Green Party. These years were also the years of the growing
pressure of the Social Democratic rank and file against the
leadership of Chancellor Schmidt who adamantly defended the
NATO decision. September 1982 then saw the collapse of the
Social Democratic-led coalition and the formation of a Christian
Democratic-Liberal coalition. The early election of March 1983
catapulted the Greens on a wave of the massive protests against
the missile policy of both the new government and the now-opposition
SPD into the Bundestag. The 5.6% for the Greens meant 28 seats,
the Green Party being the first newly-formed political party
to make it into the Bundestag in almost 30 years.
The Greens were met with intense hostility by all established
parties and soon attained the role of the real opposition in
the party system. The new party challenged almost every cornerstone
of politics in the Federal Republic. To challenge the absolute
priority of economic growth in this "Economic Miracle" country
and to put the emphasis on environmental and immaterial values
was unprecedented in West German politics. To challenge West
Germany's role as NATO's nuclear battlefield was a direct attack
on what Chancellor Kohl labelled the FRG's "raison d'etat." The
many challenges the Greens presented to the elitist parliamentary
system like the limits they placed on MP's salaries and the "rotation" (replacement)
of MP's or even just the casual colorful clothes among all
these gray suited old men caused bitter all-party resentment
among the traditional politicians. It took the SPD some years
to adjust to its new role as opposition after 13 years in government.
Though the Green Party was still a very heterogenous alliance
of former extra-parliamentary activists, former Social Democrats,
former Communists, former conservatives, and newly politicized
people, it succeeded in putting its issues on the agenda of
West German politics. While the established parties in 1982
were still able to deny flatly that there is such a thing as
acid rain and dying forests, in 1984, they already contested
state elections claiming that they are the ones doing most
to save the forests.
3. Party or Movement? Social Basis and Identity Problems
Environmental issues were quickly established as issues no
party could afford to neglect. At the same time, however, the
Greens were forced to transform from a single- or two-issue
movement into a real political party addressing all political
issues, from social security to civil rights to foreign policy.
You simply can't sit in parliament and say nothing on anything
except environment and disarmament. With the electoral success
of 1983, the party also saw its membership skyrocketing. People
having sympathized with it but still doubting its seriousness
and durability joined the party in large numbers. So the party
absorbed people coming from different political movements such
as the feminist movement, the Third World solidarity movement,
the civil rights movement, etc. They allowed the party to develop
credible and profound policies in issues that did not belong
to its key issues at the beginning. Membership today stands
at approximately 40,000.
The German Greens today are placed in the party spectrum on
the left. However, they are not a traditional left-wing party,
neither in terms of its social basis nor in terms of its ideology.
Though many people coming from a Marxist background, especially
radical left sects of the 1970's now extinct, play important
roles in the party, it constantly has defended the rights of
the socially underprivileged but never understood itself as
a class-oriented party. The social basis of the Greens is rather
weak in the traditional blue-collar working class and much
stronger in the middle class. Teachers, lawyers, students,
academics of all kinds are the domain of the Greens, mostly
between 25 and 40. In fact, the Greens used to have their maximum
support in the age group between 18 and 25, but this seems
to have shifted now to the age group of 25-35. In regional
terms, the Green strongholds are the big cities with strong
white-collar and services sectors and the university cities,
plus some regions with particular environmental problems such
as nuclear installations. The Greens enjoy maximum support
in the two southwestern university towns of Freiburg and Tübingen
(around 20 percent) and in West Berlin (14 per cent). In the
earlier years, the Greens enjoyed more support among male voters
than among women, but apparently this has changed in the meantime.
Today the Green Party can claim to have changed West German
politics as no small opposition party that new was ruling on
federal level did before. Environmental issues are addressed
by every other political party. The same can be said about
disarmament. The Social Democrats changed their defense policy
considerably since having to compete with the Greens for the
opposition vote, and even the Christian Democrats now hesitate
to openly promote arms build-ups as they used to do till the
early 1980's.
Women's issues are another area of Green success.
In the Green Party there is a strong influence of the feminist
movement. In 1983, the Green Party changed its party constitution
to require all its party committees and parliamentary groups
to consist of at least 50% women. Originally ridiculed by all
the other parties, the Social Democrats have now followed by
requiring their party to have 40% women in the relevant party
panels and parliamentary groups within the near future. Even
the Christian Democrats were forced to try to improve their
image among women and to include more women in the Cabinet
than any of the previous government. But there is still a lot
to do to reach true self-determination and equal opportunities
for women. The reactionary anti-abortion laws of the FRG have
always been opposed by the Green Party. Abortion is an individual
decision of a woman and must not be criminalized by the state.
In countries where abortion is illegal because of inadequate
observation of the principle of the separation of the church
and state, abortions happen anyway but secretly and often disastrous
conditions, or the women do it abroad. The state has to take
care that no woman is forced into abortion: there have to be
adequate children day-care center, easy access to contraceptives,
and adequate social security so that nobody is forced to abort.
Another very important achievement of the Green Party is the
democratization of West German society. Many Greens come from
the anti-authoritarian 1968 student movement and the citizen's
initiatives of the anti-nuclear movements. These movements
in itself were a popular movement against the established bureaucracies
and contributed a lot to the opening of the German political
system to popular demands. An important function of the Green
Party is to defend minorities and immigrants. The Green Party
is unanimous in it strong opposition to all elements of nationalism
and chauvinism. We support equal rights for immigrants and
oppose the attempts of the right-wing parties to get rid of
immigrants by the new Immigration Act approved by the Bundestag
in 1990. West Germany should positively acknowledge that it
is an immigrant nation and should positively accept that it
is becoming a multicultural society. With the imminent unification
of West and East Germany, German nationalism has been rising,
particularly against Turkish immigrants. Anti-semitic agitation
is vigorously opposed by the Greens because of the German history
and because anti-semitism is on the rise in Eastern Europe
and has to be opposed wherever it becomes manifest. The democratic
nature of a society essentially can be checked in its behavior
towards minorities.
Not only the conditions for Green politics have changed considerably
in the last ten years of its existence, but also the party
itself. In 1980, it was a grassroots-activists based movement
that had decided to participate in elections as a party of
different style and structure. Today it is a lot more difficult
to inspire people to join the party, and a lot more difficult
to inspire members to do more than just pay their membership
contributions. The growth of the professional bureaucracy of
the party has been fast and steady - today it is almost impossible
to tell how many people work in paid jobs for the Greens all
over the republic. With this growth the party rank and file
and the electorate have developed a kind of "consumer
mentality" towards the party and its leadership. "We
have voted for you, we pay our contributions for you, now let's
watch how you change the world for us." This was not exactly
the original idea of "basic" or grassroots democracy.
Like any other party, the Green Party has developed its "political
class" of professional politicians, despite all intentions
of "rotating" the MPs etc. However, the party seems
to develop a tendency to lose the advantages of a grassroots
democratic organization without really gaining at the same
time the advantages of a professional organizational structure.
Another problem for the Greens is that the average age of the
Green party voters, members and even more activists and functionaries
is growing steadily. While in the early 80's the Green Party
had its strongest support in the group of 18-25 years (up to
30%), it is now in the 25-40 years group. Young people (under
25) are becoming a rare phenomenon in Green Party meetings,
after having attended one meeting often deterred from attending
another by the dominating political style of the 1968 generation.
I have joined the Green Party in 1980 and today, I still am
the youngest at almost every meeting. The Green Party as a
phenomenon of the 1968 generation middle classes? To a considerable
degree, yes.
With unification with East Germany imminent, the West German
political parties will have to unite with their friends in
East Germany. In the case of the established Christian Democratic,
Social Democratic and Liberal parties this will be rather easy
- they set up their satellite parties in East Germany and exert
a lot of influence over their policies. In the case of the
Greens, there has been an environmentalist and pacifist movement
long before the collapse of the SED regime. They did organize
a Green Party themselves without the West German Greens telling
them what to do. The merger of the West and East German Greens
will happen in the near future. This will change the social
and generational composition of the party to some degree.
4. From Opposition to Government
With everybody trying to co-opt the green issues, politics
has also become increasingly complex and difficult for the
Green Party itself. The demand for Green protest votes has
considerably declined, and people increasingly expect the Greens
to be able to implement their ideas themselves by participating
in coalition governments. This question has shaken the Green
Party to the ground for years, leading to paralyzation and
almost splitting the party into the pro-coalition, "moderate" so
called "realists" ("realos") and the anti-coalition, "radical
fundamentalists" ("fundis"). In 1982, the Greens
for the first time were confronted with holding the balance
of power between Social and Christian Democrats, in the two
states of Hamburg and Hessen. Having entered these state parliaments
for the first time, as opposition movements, it was hardly
conceivable that they immediately could support of even join
the incumbent Social Democratic governments, and promptly the
negotiations between Greens and Social Democrats failed and
early elections in both states were called. While in Hamburg
the Social Democrats then got an absolute majority, in Hessen
the balance of power did not change. After two years of Social
Democratic minority governments occasionally supported by the
Greens, in 1985 the two parties in Hessen formed the first
coalition government with a Green Minister for Environment
and Energy.
However, the Social Democrats, having ruled the state for more
than 30 years, were extremely unwilling to really change their
policies, particularly regarding nuclear power, and so the
coalition broke after 14 months of conflicts, despite heavy
compromising by the Greens, in February 1987. The subsequent
early elections led to Green gains (9%), but the Social Democrats
lost heavily to the Christian Democrats (and many of their
voters stayed at home), so that a new government of Christian
Democrats and Liberals took over. It became obvious that the
vast majority of the Green electorate supported the "red-green" coalition,
but the Social Democratic electorate was split almost equally
into one part supporting cooperation with the Greens, one part
being neutral to it, and a third part opposing it. The "red-green" project
seemed over before it really had started, and the Social Democrats
ruled out further such coalitions with the Greens.
The scene surprisingly changed two years later, in January
1989, after the West Berlin state elections resulted in a totally
unexpected majority for Social Democrats and Greens, both being
in opposition before. Unlike Hessen, the Berlin Green Party
(for historical reasons called the "Alternative List")
was not dominated by the pro-coalition "realo" faction.
It proved that negotiations with an SPD having been in opposition
like the Greens and wanting to get power are easier than with
an SPD just having lost a ruling majority, and a coalition
government with three Green minsters was established. All three
are women, serving in West Germany's first-ever state cabinet
with more female that male minsters. The coalition, however,
is far from being harmonious because the SPD quickly is falling
back into their ruling party attitude and increasingly trying
to block the implementation of green elements in the coalition
agreement. Therefore it is doubtful whether the coalition will
survive the full legislative term until 1993. Meanwhile, Frankfurt
and recently Munich (since May 1990) are two more big cities
in West Germany administered by Green-Social Democratic coalitions.
For the Greens the question of participating in government
presented serious identity problems for a party that was trying
to be movement and party simultaneously. However, you can't
maintain the claim of sharing activities equally between the
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary area when you are in
fact the most "parliamentarized" party. Due to the
rather small membership and the electoral successes, almost
every green activist hold a seat in a parliament or local council
or is employed by the respective parliamentary groups. It is
still for many Greens a somewhat repulsive notion that the
party has become more or less just another political party,
different from others, but clearly a party and not a movement.
The question of participating in government has bitterly divided
the Greens for years. This was the superficial expression for
the fact that within the Greens there are reformists who want
to use the state as a means to change the society and people
basically rejecting reformism and to a considerable degree
the state as such. The extremely polarized confrontation between
hard-cord "fundis" (opposed to any form of participation
in government coalitions) and hard-core "realos" (trying
to become minsters at any price) that had paralyzed the party
for years now more or less has come to an end. There were lots
of bitter and intense internal conflicts, most of them taking
place via the media. However, the party now finally seems to
have realized that the choice between a policy to get a coalition
at any price and a policy to avoid a coalition at any price
is a choice between two dead end strategies. The hard-core
left wing ("fundis") and the hard-core right wing
("realos") are losing now a lot of their influence
to growing center-left and center-right groups who differ more
in the contents of their policies than in the form of how to
implement it and share a pragmatic approach to the question
of coalitions with the SPD. A lot of "fundis" have
meanwhile left the party to radical extra-parliamentary groups,
while a number of "realos" defected to the Social
Democrats.
Despite this relative decline of the influence of both "fundis" and "realos," the "realo" faction
are still capable to induce serious ideological disputes within
the party. Particularly the federal parliament and leadership
is often plagued by bizarre ideological disputes that can only
be explained by the history of many activist coming from the
1968 student movement. Many of them joined all kinds of weird
extreme left groups in the 1970's such as Maoist, Trotskyist,
pro-Albanian, etc. splinter groups. Many of them ended up with
the "realo" faction in the party, and now with the
same ideological vigor as in the 1970's favor "ecological
capitalism," as one their protagonists labeled it. Others
rather look for "ecological socialism."
Meanwhile
it should be clear that the old ideological contradiction of
capitalism vs. socialism is outdated, but within the Greens
it still forms the basis of intense struggles within their
leadership. Capitalism has not only failed to solve the central
problems facing humanity nowadays - the ecological crisis and
the widening gap between rich and poor nations, between North
and South - in fact, the capitalist world market is directly
responsible for these problems. The Green Party therefore can
only fulfill its functions if it challenges the central tenets
of capitalist growth economies that live on the expense of
future generations and the vast majority of people living in
the "Third World" - without falling into the trap
of outdated marxist assumptions. The Green Party was founded
as a progressive party of a new type, and as such it gets votes.
It is hardly conceivable that it would be elected as a kind
of eco-liberal party. However, I am quite optimistic that the
present ideological disputes will not lead to a split in the
party as the media like to predict simply because at the grassroots
the party is much less engaged in such ideological disputes
but more in practical activities for Green objectives.
5. Prospects for Die Grünen
As the party now is entering its 11th year, it is entering
a year that will be crucial for its future. 1990 is a year
with lots of local and state elections, and in December there
will be federal elections. The unification drive with East
Germany has considerably strengthened Chancellor Kohl's Christian
Democrat-led government, and it seem that the first all-German
elections that will take place in not too distant future will
return him with a solid majority. For the Greens, it will be
a matter of survival to get enough votes in East Germany to
get 5% on all-German level. With both Greens and Social Democrats
being rather weak in East Germany and the conservatives being
very strong in both West and East Germany, Social Democratic-Green
coalitions therefore look rather unlikely at least on federal
level in the near future. The Greens clearly are opposition
in the current drive for a unified Germany that is nothing
less than speedy incorporation of the GDR into the FRG, with
a lot of negative domestic, social and foreign policy consequences.
At the moment the unification process is also thwarting the
rise of the extreme right that became apparent with the extreme-right "Republican
Party" obtaining seats in the European Parliament elections
in June 1989 (7%).
The rise of the extreme right, not only in terms of the Republican
Party, but also in terms of a changing political atmosphere
with regard to immigrants, is mainly due to the social disenfranchisement
of a certain sector of the lower classes. Surveys have shown
that the vast majority of Republican voters are young men with
socially low status who are taking refuge in blaming immigrants
and women for their unemployment. However, youth and long-term
unemployment is a problem likely to persist. Capitalist modernization
in the FRG is leading to a "two-thirds society" with
a permanently disadvantaged and disenfranchised lower third
of the society. While Greens and to a limited degree red-green
coalitions have tried to combat rising racism and right-wing
extremism by improving the status of immigrants by measures
like giving them the right to vote in local elections, etc.,
they have so far hardly been able to address the underlying
socio-economic reasons, let alone do something to cure these
reasons.
On the contrary, the Greens are running danger to entangle
themselves into coalition policies that will persist these
dark sides of capitalist modernization. The coalition government
in the city of Frankfurt that was formed in March 1989 is an
example of such tendencies with the Green Party running danger
of becoming just an appendix to the Social Democrats. In Frankfurt,
the booming financial center of the FRG, the Greens hold the
portfolios for environment and "multicultural affairs" in
the city government. However, the city government is as servile
to the demands of the city's business circles as its Christian
Democratic predecessor: the Greens had to agree with the Social
Democrats on such nasty things as the further expansion of
the airport, construction of new highrise towers for banks,
etc. and the big polluters within the city limits like the
Hoechst chemical company are hardly affected by the new administration.
For the socially underprivileged, the new administration of
this rich city hardly improved anything. The modernization
and growth of the export-oriented economy still is taboo. The
prospering yuppie middle class of this city is "modern" enough
to accept a Green junior partner in the city administration
to improve the environmental and cultural quality of life -
to put it cynically: to repair the negative ecological and
social consequences of Social Democratic-style capitalist modernization
- while the requirements of booming business sector remain
paramount. Developing Frankfurt into "Manhattan" remains
the policy of the city administration. Social Democratic-Green
alliances as a more modern, more acceptable form of capitalist
modernization - this may well be the result of such alliances
in many cities. After all, if you have a Green minister for
environment telling you she is doing everything to stop pollution,
but unfortunately the agreements with the Social Democrats
don't allow it for the time being, it's easier to justify environmental
pollution than if you have strong extra-parliamentary movements
and an opposition Green Party challenging the government.
However, the Green can't be blamed that they cannot get out
more of their Social Democratic allies. This just represents
the existing power balance which can't be shifted dramatically
at the negotiating table after an election. What many Greens
have to be blamed for is how uncritical they celebrate the "Social
Democratic policy with a few green spots" that is at the
moment the maximum they can get from the Social Democrats as
big successes. Ultimately, any Green Party minsters are only
as strong as the popular pressure for Green policies since
they don't have the institutional backing of the powers that
be in business and bureaucracy. If the Green Party perceives
its participation in government just as a chance to capture
well-paid jobs where you have to pacify the public by creating
the Green facade around expansive economic growth, it has missed
a formidable chance. How the party will fare between the Scylla
of being absorbed in Social Democratism and the Charybdis of
isolation in an opposition ghetto of 8% still remains an open
question.
However, it is clear that no Green Party can achieve very much
if there is not strong popular movement for Green objectives,
for ecology, for civil rights, for disarmament. In the early
years, Die Grünen used the slogan of being based in the
movement and using this as a basis for parliament, but when
the movement became weaker, many Green MPs started to believe
thy could change the world alone by parliamentary means. The
second report of the Bundestag Parliamentary Group to the party
dated November 1984 stated quite correctly: "Without grassroots
activities there is no parliamentary success, not even parliamentary
issues. But parliamentary activities never can be a substitute
for grassroots activities. Without grassroots activities a
small parliamentary group such as the Greens would be without
any influence." Indeed the biggest successes of the Greens
in changing West German politics hardly are just a result of
parliamentary activity. A Green Party and the grassroots movements
have different tasks and can increase their political success
by mutual cooperation, but neither can be a substitute for
the other nor be very successful without the other.
6. Green Parties - An International Phenomenon
Though the German Greens were the first ones to make headlines
in the international press, they are neither the first Green
Party nor the first one to get seats in a national parliament.
New Zealand is on record as having the first green party -
the "Values Party" formed in 1972. Despite spectacular
electoral results, it didn't get seats due to New Zealand's
anachronistic, British-style electoral system. Only little
later Britain's Ecology Party, later renamed Green Party, was
formed. 1982 Belgium's two Green Parties won seats in their
national parliament. The European Parliament elections in June
1989 established Green Parties in most EC countries and saw
skyrocketing electoral results of the so "Latin Europe" (Portugal,
France and Italy).
Frontrunners were - quite unexpectedly -
the British Greens with 14.5 percent, but the British electoral
system didn't give them a single seat. The new parliamentary
group in the European Parliament in consists now of Greens
and green-related MPs elected on 12 different lists from 7
countries: Portugal, Spain, France, West Germany, and the Netherlands.
Greens have established a presence in national parliaments
of Sweden, Finland, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium,
Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Ireland,
and recently Greece. In a few cases like Norway, Denmark and
Iceland already existing parties or electoral alliances so
far have taken this place and prevented the rise of green parties
to parliamentary representation, in some Mediterranean countries
like Spain and Greece the unification process of green and
alternative groups so far has been not yet really completed.
However, "Green Party" is not exactly always the
same in the various countries. As the political culture of
the countries concerned is different, so are the histories
and policies of green and alternative parties. Almost from
the beginning there were ideologically-motivated tensions between
the so called "green-greens" who wanted to avoid
any identification with the "left" and the so called "green-alternatives" or "red-greens" who
from the beginning had perceived the Greens as a progressive
political project addressing not only the ecological but also
the social dimension of Green politics.
Though elements of
both sides were present in almost every green-alternative party,
their presence varied greatly in the respective national parties.
Germany's "Die Grünen" rather quickly had decided
this question in favor of a progressive policy, emphasizing "ecology,
basic democracy, non-violence, social responsibility" as
their four main pillars, so that the leaders of their conservative
faction like former Christian Democratic MP Gruhl quitted the
new party. The "fundi-realo" conflict that later
almost paralyzed the party had quite a different nature and
was more of a confrontation between eco-socialists still stuck
to a considerable degree in traditional leftist policies of
the 70's and "eco-social democrats" but both of these
dominant currents had nothing to do with "green-green." The
conservative element within the Green Party by then had already
formed its own party, as it happened likewise in the Netherlands
and Luxembourg, where "Groen Progressief Akoord" (now
renamed "Groen Links") and "Dei Greng Alternativ" who
have parliamentary representation are of little attractiveness
to conservatives.
In some other countries, like France and Britain, the situation
was different. For various reasons, the progressive movements
saw Green politics with suspicion and stuck to affiliations
with Socialist or Communist parties. Thus the Green parties
largely remained small and confined outside the political game,
more than unfair electoral systems anyway would have forced
them to be. Consequently, they were preoccupied with maintaining
their green-green "ideological purity" much more
than if they had been an actor in day-to-day politics. Only
recently this has begun to change, and they find themselves
more and more forced to accept their place as progressive opposition.
The practical experience of cooperation between "green-green" and "green-alternative" in
places like the Green-Alternative group (GRAEL) in the European
Parliament 1984-1989 contributed a great deal to this development.
May prejudices proved to be wrong, an approach emphasizing
not ideological differences but common practical political
action prevailed.
There are now two international structures of green and alternative
parties. The Green group in the European Parliament, as already
mentioned, consists of 12 different parties and list from 7
EC countries. Apart from that, there is the loose coordination
of the "European Greens," established in 1983 as
a project of "green-green" parties to establish a
separate structure excluding the more left-wing alternative
parties such as the Dutch Groen-Progressief Akoord (now renamed
Groen Links) or the West German Die Grünen. Despite opposition
from the more conservative "green-green"elements,
this coordination is now slowly being opened to incorporate
the full spectrum of green-alternative parties in Europe, starting
with the West German Greens in 1987 and including now even
the longtime controversial Dutch Groen Links. it now has membership
of 21 parties from 18 countries plus 4 observers. However,
there is nothing like a political directorate that could interfere
in the policies of the member parties and any political decision
has to be taken unanimously. This coordination thus is nothing
like the Socialist International but just a loose coordination."
Outside Europe, green parties have proved to be predominantly
a feature of the industrialized nations. New Zealand has been
mentioned, and in Australia some green and related movements
have obtained seats in the federal and state parliaments and
in the island state of Tasmania they are now part of a ruling
alliance with the Labor Party. Canada has a Green Party, hampered
by the unfair electoral system, and the United States have
Green movements that have participated in elections on local
level. In Latin America, fake green parties have been set up
by the sect "La Comunidad" directed by the and Argentine "philosopher" acting
under the name of Silo, but these are artificial creations
without grassroots support in the ecological movements of these
countries. An exception is the very active Brazilian Green
Party, who is currently campaigning in the Congressional election
campaign with its leader Fernando Gabeira, an ex-guerilla,
and has seats in some city state parliaments such as Sao Paulo
and Rio de Janeiro. The Brazilians are completely independent
of "La Comunidad" and are the only Green Party in
a Third World country so far that successfully established
a political presence.
7. Green Parties in Eastern Europe
With perestroika in the Soviet Union the green movement is
now quickly spreading to the Eastern European countries. In
many Eastern European countries, environmental problems are
often even more serious than in heavily industrialized Western
Europe. Green Parties were among the first new independent
political forces to be established as the power monopolies
of the Communist Parties began to fade. In fact, in the GDR
and Czechoslovakia the Green movement has played a very active
role in the revolutions in these countries. Western European
Greens always have maintained contacts to Eastern European
Green and democratic groups, even long before this was officially
accepted.
The first Green movement to gain parliamentary representation
in Eastern Europe were the Green in the Baltic Soviet republics.
As part of the respective Popular fronts, they got seats in
the USSR Congress of People's Deputies and the Supreme Soviets
of these republics. Some of them attended the congress of the
European Greens in April 1989 in Paris and raised international
attention to their cause. Western Greens became aware of the
striking fact that there are now Green MPs in the USSR but
still not in the UK, the self-proclaimed "Motherland of
Democracy" with its unfair electoral system. Today, in
other Soviet republics there are also very active green movements,
particularly in Georgia and the Ukraine, but also parts of
the RSFSR. So far, from the Soviet Union only the Estonian
Greens have applied for membership in the coordination of European
Greens and were admitted as full members in December 1989.
The first East European Green Party to contest nationwide elections
running on their own is the Green Party of the German Democratic
Republic. Founded independently of the West German Greens in
November 1989 in East Berlin, they obtained 2 percent and 8
seats in the GDR elections in March 1990. Unlike the other
political parties in the GDR with "sister parties" in
West Germany, the GDR Greens maintain their political independence,
although received substantial technical support from the West.
In accordance with the West German Greens, they oppose the
unification drive and ran in favor of a sovereign GDR confederated
with the FRG. The Modrow government in early 1990 gave various
opposition groups cabinet seats as ministers without portfolio,
so the GDR Greens were the first to have cabin et minsters
on national level, though this happened under very special
conditions.
In Czechoslovakia, Greens were given parliamentary seats in
December 1989 even before their party was officially launched
in February 1990. They are organized in a very federal way
with a particularly strong base in Slovakia. They play now
an active role in the political life of their country. The
situation is different in Poland and Hungary, where Greens
still are rather marginal, despite the massive environmental
problems and struggles there. Poland's Greens are plagued by
strong factionalism and the existence of several organizations
claiming the Green label for themselves. However, in their
stronghold of Krakow they recently won the mayoral elections.
Hungary's Greens suffer from the serious discrimination in
the Hungarian electoral laws against smaller parties as well
as from internal disputes, though the Danube movement against
the Nagymaros dam, played a pivotal role in the East European
environmentalist movement. Greens now also have taken root
in Romania and Bulgaria, though are still in a very early stage
of their development.
Eastern European Greens share many objectives of their Western
friends, though their socio-political history is very different.
Particularly remarkable is the absence of the 68 student movement
with its ideological rifts that have shaped so many of the
Western European Greens. Controversial among all of them is
the attitude towards former Communist Party members joining
Green parties. Serious differences between East and West European
Greens exist in the perception of the nation state: East European
Greens particularly from the Soviet Union, emphasize national
independence and sovereignty, while their Western allies emphasize
limitation of national sovereignty by supranational and international
structures - quite understandable from the different historical
background. Also, there are cultural differences: the Western
Greens tend to be more "alternative" and tend to
have many more women active in politics than the Eastern Greens.
8. The Role of Green Parties in European Politics
Having established themselves as an independent political force,
green and alternative parties are now facing the next challenge:
determining what role to play in European politics. Socialist
and Conservative/Christian Democratic parties have their idea
of (West) European integration. Despite all their differences
in detail, they basically agree in fundamental questions. Green
and alternative parties - in all their diversity -now have
to prove they can really change the course of European politics
and be more than just the "bad conscience" of a modern
capitalist society. First of all, the challenge is to keep
a clear political line in denouncing the half-hearted attempts
of the traditional parties to get a "green image," and
to keep the ability to promote political alternatives. They
must keep putting the traditional parties under pressure and
withstand the tendency to be swallowed into a kind of all-party
politics of "talking green" without really changing
anything.
Green politics must provide the political alternative - both
conceptually and in day-to-day politics - to the project of
the United (Western) Europe of capitalist modernization that
involves the build-up of the EC as economic, political and
eventually even military superpower competing with the U.S.
and Japan for dominance in global markets. Our region is being
organized by transnational capital, which brings together far
flung and heterogenous areas and peoples into an integrated,
hierarchical division of labor. The consequences of this course
will be the continuation of Europe's neocolonial relations
with the countries of the so-called Third World, technocratic
management of an unecological economy to limit its disastrous
effects that are now threatening the whole of humankind, and
a "two-thirds" society inside the EC with a permanently
unemployed underclass and with almost impenetrable frontiers
and a "fortress mentality" against Eastern European
and Third World immigrants. A formidable challenge will be
to push back the growing racism in almost every EC country.
Green and alternative parties have to be in the active core
of a broad anti-nationist and anti-racist alliance in European
societies to push back the rise of another product of the erosion
of the traditional party system: the neo-fascist parties.
European societies today have shown to have an increasing need
for green/alternative policies. It is not only electoral successes
of green and alternative parties demonstrating this but also
the objective crisis of nature and humankind and the attempt
of the established, traditional parties to get a "green" image.
Green politics can only be successful as an international force.
The superficial "greening" of the traditional parties
leaves no need for unpolitical, "green-green" middle-of-the-road
environmentalism. With everybody trying to co-opt the green
issues, politics has also become increasingly complex and difficult
for the green parties. The demand for Green protest votes has
considerably declined, and people increasingly expect the Greens
to be able to implement their ideas themselves by participating
in the executive.
Europe today is reorganizing itself in amazing pact. The bloc
structures that have divided Europe for 40 years are gradually
being dissolved. But there can be no return to the nation states
of the 19th and early 20th century. In fact, today we need
both a delegation of powers to the regions and supranational
structures: regionalization and internationalization at the
same time. Today, the central governments of the nation states
are too powerful. Thus the regional levels should be strengthened
and given more autonomy, but at the same time there should
be a delegation of sovereign rights of the nation state to
supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe and
the United Nations to prevent nationalistic adventures and
a "re-balkanization." The Cold War military alliances
of NATO and the Warsaw Treaty (and also the Western European
Union, WEU) are anachronistic remnants and have no place in
the Common House of Europe. They should dissolve as quickly
as possible. We need a system of all-European collective security
(cf. U.N. charter articles 52-54) for which the CSCE could
be a starting point. Debates about changing borders, as we
have it currently for instance among the right wing in West
Germany with regard to the GDR and Poland are not very helpful
for this purpose.
European Collective Security is a proposal to define the "common
house of Europe" more concretely and could be an alternative
to simply adding more and more nations to the EC. This framework
could provide a basis for a more intense exchange and cooperation
in economy, ecology, technology, and culture. It could be an
alternative to the ideas of drawing Eastern European nations
closer and closer into the orbit of the EC and ultimately establish
French-West German political and economic hegemony over Europe.
Building the Common House of Europe must at the same time involve
new arrangements concerning world trade structures to reduce
the capacity of the "economic superpowers" to establish
permanent dependence of the Third World (and possibly in the
future Eastern Europe) in the notorious European tradition
of Empires. Ultimately, the Common House of Europe has to be
built from the grassroots. Green movements play an important
role in this endeavor.
