September 20, 2024 - 3:20pm

More than a third of Germans want the Green Party to have no role in the next government under any circumstances, according to new figures from pollster Allensbach published by Stuttgarter Zeitung. 

The Greens were second only to the AfD, which 54% of respondents wanted to have no part in government — though the Right-wing party also received higher support than the Greens. The Greens only received 10% support, compared to 35.5% for the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance.

This polling marks a rapid decline for the once-popular Greens, which secured a 15% share in the 2021 national elections. Germany’s push for green energy, which has included the end of nuclear power production, has been blamed for the country’s economic decline. Meanwhile, public interest in the issue of climate change has declined as Europeans become more concerned about the war in Ukraine and related energy issues.

Greens see plunging popularity in Germany
Germans want the following parties to have no role in government

Meanwhile, the AfD is polling at 17%, pulling ahead of the Greens for popular support despite seeing such high levels of unpopularity. The party recently won the eastern state of Thuringia in a major victory.

The Greens did not fare any better in polling of various coalitions, with only 3% reporting that an SPD-FDP-Green coalition was good for the country and similarly poor results for a Union-FDP-Greens coalition, according to the new poll.

Much of the fall in support for the Greens has been driven by Germany's worsening economic outlook. The country narrowly avoided a recession this year, and its economy contracted in the second quarter. It was also the worst-performing major world economy in 2023.

None of this bodes well for Chancellor Olaf Scholz or the governing coalition, which have been divided over foreign policy and the national budget to the point of inspiring speculation about a possible government breakdown. Dubbed the traffic-light coalition, their time in office has seen low levels of public satisfaction with national leadership. A botched plan to regulate home boilers and an effort to use Covid funding in service of climate plans served as pivotal moments for the party’s declining relationship with the German public.

As for the Greens, the party's Katharina Fegebank remained optimistic about their future in a recent interview. The Greens, she said, who “are currently going through a kind of slump at the federal level and in some states and are also being made a bit of a scapegoat for everything, will come back.” She added: “We are here to stay.”


is UnHerd’s US correspondent.

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