The Greens are once again particularly reliable as NATO adherents in the current Ukraine conflict and have thoroughly left their past as a peace party behind.
In Berlin’s traffic light coalition, the Greens [Bündnis 90/Die Grünen] in particular are pursuing a rigid anti-Russia course and are emphatically in favour of supplying even heavy weapons to Ukraine (although this is politically extremely risky and could very quickly turn Germany into a war participant). At the same time, they are denigrating the chancellor’s party, the SPD, as well as Chancellor Scholz himself.
While German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock justified the arms deliveries to Kiev by saying that now was “no time for excuses, but […] time for creativity and pragmatism”, European Committee Chairman Anton Hofreiter rumbled at the chancellor: “Finally, stop standing on the brakes.”
Hofreiter added: “With his actions, the chancellor is not only damaging the situation in Ukraine, he is doing massive damage to Germany’s reputation in Europe and in the world.”
Sadly, Baerbock and Hofreiter are not the only ones in the Green Party who want to see Germany in conflict with Russia as soon as possible.
According to a recent Infratest survey, Green supporters are most in favour of supplying even heavy weapons to Ukraine: 72 percent are in favour, with just 22 against. SPD supporters follow in second place with 66 percent in favour and 29 percent against. The FDP also voted with 65 percent in favour and the CDU/CSU 63 percent.
Already in the Yugoslavian war of 1999, the first war of aggression of the Western military alliance, the Greens, which at that time was led by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, supported the most radical line of NATO.