(de-news.net) – A liberating move: the Green Party’s executive board surprisingly announced its collective resignation on Wednesday. A “fresh start” with new faces is needed, as Green Party leader Nouripour and his co-chair Lang explained in Berlin. The fresh start is to be heralded at a party conference in November, which will take place in Wiesbaden. Lang added that the resignation could be a building block for a “strategic repositioning” of the party – with a view to the federal election in autumn next year. That election will set the tone for Germany’s development with an impact on the country’s prosperity and cohesion. “Now is the time to take responsibility and we are taking on that responsibility,” said Lang.
The decision to resign is also a reaction to the party’s election defeats in eastern Germany. In contrast to Saxony, where they narrowly made it into parliament, they are no longer represented in the state parliaments in Thuringia and Brandenburg. The Greens had also lost seats in the European elections. Lang and Nouripour had been jointly leading the Greens since February 2022 and were to remain in their positions until at least November 2025. Now, then, a new beginning in terms of personnel.
The SPD leaders Esken and Klingbeil thanked Lang and Nuripur for their cooperation, and the managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Mast, said she did not expect any impact on the traffic light coalition. Chancellor Scholz had his government spokesman announce that he regretted the resignation of the Green leadership. Federal Minister of Economics and Vice Chancellor Habeck (Greens) described the resignation of the green leadership as a great service to the party. FDP leader Lindner emphasized that the cooperation with the Green leaders had always been fair on a human level.
In contrast, the managing director of the Union parliamentary group, Frei, emphasized that the resignation would increase the centrifugal forces in the traffic light coalition. The Bavarian Prime Minister Söder went so far as to call on Habeck to resign from office. Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens), meanwhile, announced a more pragmatic course for her party that would be guided by values. She paid great respect to Lang and Nuripur.
