Europe’s climate change-minded parties performed poorly in the European Union elections. Is the once ambitious European green movement over, or could its electoral crash launch a rebirth?
We see that in France right now. The Greens who in France tend to be fundamentalist have formed an alliance with nearly all other left leaning parties to prevent the right from taking over in the snap election Macron has called. Macron is badly hurt, due to awful internal policies, so they are very very unlikely to win the elections. Also voter turnout was only 51%, so there is a decent chance, the French parliament actually fights back rather heavily. In France the Greens lost 5 out of their 10 seats, so if this works this would be good news.
The biggest looser were the German Greens. However elections are supposed to be in a year. The German economy does badly and the Greens pushed through some unpopular reforms, which were badly needed. However federal elections are in autumn next year. So they have some time to come up with a plan. Good news is that the unpopular laws they wanted to pass, have been passed, the German economy does rather badly and that might change, the EM probably improves the general mood a bit and they still have some pre election gifts lined up. As for the next elections as long as the center right party remains unwilling to work together with the far right party, they have to form a coalition with either the social democrats or the Greens. So most the next government might do pretty much nothing at all or do a bit of good work.
However the simple truth is that the current governing coalition in the EU Parliament still would have a majority. The Greens are part of it and plenty of other parties in the EU are aware and acting on climate change. Also a lot of good laws have been passed. So just keeping them in place will do a lot of good.
We see that in France right now. The Greens who in France tend to be fundamentalist have formed an alliance with nearly all other left leaning parties to prevent the right from taking over in the snap election Macron has called. Macron is badly hurt, due to awful internal policies, so they are very very unlikely to win the elections. Also voter turnout was only 51%, so there is a decent chance, the French parliament actually fights back rather heavily. In France the Greens lost 5 out of their 10 seats, so if this works this would be good news.
The biggest looser were the German Greens. However elections are supposed to be in a year. The German economy does badly and the Greens pushed through some unpopular reforms, which were badly needed. However federal elections are in autumn next year. So they have some time to come up with a plan. Good news is that the unpopular laws they wanted to pass, have been passed, the German economy does rather badly and that might change, the EM probably improves the general mood a bit and they still have some pre election gifts lined up. As for the next elections as long as the center right party remains unwilling to work together with the far right party, they have to form a coalition with either the social democrats or the Greens. So most the next government might do pretty much nothing at all or do a bit of good work.
However the simple truth is that the current governing coalition in the EU Parliament still would have a majority. The Greens are part of it and plenty of other parties in the EU are aware and acting on climate change. Also a lot of good laws have been passed. So just keeping them in place will do a lot of good.