Federal delegates' conference of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen 1998 in Magdeburg

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The 10th ordinary federal delegates' conference of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen 1998 in Magdeburg took place from March 6th to 8th. At this Federal Delegate Conference (BDK) the election manifesto of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen for the 1998 Bundestag election was decided. The so-called “five-mark decision” caused a lot of media coverage. With this decision, the Greens demanded that the price of a liter of petrol should be gradually increased to DM 5 . The refusal to extend the SFOR mandate of the German Armed Forces ( GECONSFOR ) in Bosnia-Herzegovina also received a lot of attention . Because of these decisions, the party's ability to govern has been questioned.

Starting position

The party's situation in 1998

After the West German Greens failed to pass the five percent hurdle in the 1990 Bundestag election , the party was restructured and the program was realigned. In this process, the so-called Fundis and large parts of the left wing left the party in 1990/91 . The departure of the left wing and radical ecological wing as well as the mergers with the Green Party in the GDR in 1990 and with Bündnis 90 in 1993 once again accelerated the party's realpolitical reorientation.

The 10th Ordinary Assembly of Federal Delegates took place in the run-up to the 1998 Bundestag election in Magdeburg . From April 1991 to March 1998 the party had won almost all elections . In the 1994 federal election , Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen achieved 7.3 percent of the vote and for the first time overtook the FDP as the third strongest force in parliament. At the time of the federal delegates' conference in Magdeburg, the party was involved in five red-green state governments in Hesse, Saxony-Anhalt, North Rhine-Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. Up until the end of 1997 the party's share of the vote in West Germany ranged between ten and twelve percentage points, in East Germany between six and eight percentage points. This trend only ended a week before the Magdeburg Party Congress with the state elections in Lower Saxony , where Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen lost 0.4 percentage points, while the SPD under Gerhard Schröder gained an absolute majority.

The concept of an ecological tax reform

The central environmental project of the Greens in the 1998 election campaign was the ecological tax reform . The basic idea was the internalization of external costs and thus the realization of true costs according to the polluter pays principle . The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) presented a study in 1994 which, with a continuously rising energy tax and a simultaneous reduction in social security contributions, predicted a significant decrease in both unemployment and environmental pollution. The concept of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen followed on from this study. Like the Greens, the SPD and the PDS also called for an ecological tax reform in 1998 , while the CDU and CSU wanted to campaign for higher energy taxation within a European framework .

The election manifesto devoted two pages to the price of gasoline and gave detailed reasons for the demand. It was emphasized that the actual gasoline price does not reflect an ecological cost truth. True prices based on the polluter pays principle are necessary in order to find economically efficient solutions, limit traffic and minimize environmental pollution. Therefore, road traffic in particular has to bear all consequential costs, e.g. B. for infrastructure, environmental and building damage.

This goal should be achieved through an environmentally-oriented tax policy in the transport sector. The motor vehicle tax , however, should be abolished as it does not correspond to the polluter pays principle and has no steering character. At the same time, a reduction in social security contributions by a total of six percentage points was planned within ten years, half of which would have benefited the employers and half the employees.

Specifically, the tax reform should have a significant effect on switching to other modes of transport. Local public transport should be promoted and made more attractive. In particular, the market launch of the technically feasible 3-liter car was to be accelerated and an incentive created to buy vehicles with low fuel consumption and low exhaust emissions . According to the Greens, the tax reform offered the opportunity to promote an innovative automotive industry and thus create sustainable jobs. An investment program for the railroad expansion and for the acquisition of modern rail vehicles should also create new jobs.

Disputes about the draft program

The first draft of the election program for which the federal executive was responsible was presented to the press by the two spokesmen for the federal executive, Gunda Röstel and Jürgen Trittin , on October 13, 1997 under the title "Green is the change". The draft program from October 1997 contained, among other things, a detailed plan to gradually increase the price of petrol to DM 4.30 by 2005.

After the presentation, there were initially violent internal party disputes about the foreign and security policy demands, but also about the economic and financial policy parts of the program, especially about the demand for a higher petrol price. The draft program came under sharp attack by the realpolitical wing of the party.

On December 15, Gunda Röstel and Jürgen Trittin then presented a revised draft program, which had been revised particularly in its foreign policy section. Among other things, this no longer contained the demand for the Federal Republic of Germany to withdraw unilaterally from NATO . The demand for a significant increase in the mineral oil tax, however, was still included and now even the increase in the price of petrol to DM 5 within ten years, i.e. by 2008, was planned. After a one-time increase in the mineral oil tax of 50 pfennigs in the first year, it should gradually increase by 30 pfennigs each time in the following years. This second draft was discussed from January 10th to 11th, 1998 by the delegates of the state council in Erfurt.

The Federal Delegates' Conference

Since the polls indicated a mood of change among the population and participation of the Greens in a red-green coalition was considered possible or even likely, the party congress was followed with particular public interest.

Arrangements in advance

In the run-up to the federal delegates' conference, the party wings agreed on a joint agreement , according to which the realpolitical wing around Joschka Fischer would agree to the mineral oil tax increase, while the left wing around Jürgen Trittin should enable the SFOR mandate of the German armed forces ( GECONSFOR ) in Bosnia and Herzegovina to be extended.

Voting

The program item to increase the mineral oil tax was accepted despite clear warnings from a number of speakers. After the application had been accepted, Fischer called to the delegates to thunderous applause: "We'll fight that through together!"

Contrary to what had been agreed beforehand, the motion, which would have enabled the Bundeswehr to extend its SFOR mandate in Bosnia, was rejected by 275 votes to 274. In addition, the Greens spoke out against the participation of the Bundeswehr in “military peace enforcement ” and “combat operations”. It took revenge that Fischer, Trittin and Ludger Volmer had negotiated the compromise in a small circle without adequately informing the party base and the traditionally unpredictable federal delegates' conference about its purpose. None of the three spoke to the plenary on this point.

The BDK also appointed a negotiating commission that should lead coalition negotiations with the SPD after a possible victory for the Red-Green party.

Reactions

Public echo

The public response to the party congress was devastating for the Alliance Greens. The media concentrated almost exclusively on the targeted gasoline price increase and the Bosnia resolution. Many voters paid less attention to the long-term tax concept. The demand for a petrol price of 5 marks in the media was often presented in isolation and without the exonerating measures of the overall package. The picture in particular fueled the fear that “the night after a red-green election victory, the gas station attendant would climb the ladder and screw on a sign with the price 'five marks'”, as Joschka Fischer put it. The party had not presented a systematic communication strategy for the ecological tax reform before entering the government.

The competing parties now had a “populist, powerful symbolic theme to differentiate themselves from the Greens”. Last but not least, the SPD used this opportunity. SPD chancellor candidate Gerhard Schröder attested the potential coalition partner's inability to govern, among other things because of the gasoline price demand. The CDU led a campaign under Secretary General Peter Hintze with the motto Don't let yourself be tapped . The fact that the mineral oil tax had risen by 49 pfennigs during the black and yellow government did not make it public.

The party tried to counter the impression that it was patronizing the people. On May 14th, she presented a short version of the election program, in which the demand for a petrol price increase to 5 marks was no longer explicitly included. While the party strategists tried to limit the damage in public perception, the green member of the Bundestag Halo Saibold exacerbated the communicative disaster by an interview with the picture on March 22, in which she claimed that it would be quite sufficient "if the Germans do not go on a vacation trip by plane every year, but only every five years ”. That is why the price of kerosene should also be increased to 5 marks per liter.

consequences

If the realpolitical programmatic change of the Greens in the 1990s had led to new groups of voters, the willingness to vote for the Greens sank significantly due to the discussion about the demand for an increase in the price of petrol to 5 marks, because many voters considered it to be a return to green fundamentalism of past years was perceived. A minority opinion, on the other hand, takes the view that the lack of support from the party leadership for the tax proposals has led to the concept with the desired ecological and transport advantages and the lowering of social contributions being discussed little, and rather a disagreement within the Greens at the expense ecologically oriented currents were perceived; The vehement criticism of the tax plans, however, would have come from circles that do not vote green anyway. The long-term gasoline price increase planned over several legislative periods was not rewarded as an honesty towards the voters. Particularly swing voters were scared of the plans, while in core voters expectations were stoked, which then could not be realized.

With 6.7 percent, the Greens achieved a relatively poor result in the federal election. Due to the strong result of the SPD, however, it was enough for the first red-green coalition at the federal level. Some of the demands made at the BDK were realized after the takeover of government by the red-green federal government through the ecological tax . The 5 DM decision had no consequences. An increase in the mineral oil tax of just six pfennigs was included in the coalition agreement , which the SPD had already called for in a tax reform concept in May 1997 and which Gerhard Schröder had emphatically advocated during the election campaign and again before the coalition negotiations began. Despite the only tentative steps with which the ecological tax was introduced, acceptance remained low.

Root cause research

The causes of the communicative disaster have been scientifically analyzed several times. For Christoph Egle, the lack of a current basic program was partly responsible for the fact that the Greens mixed up short-term measures and long-term strategies in an unwise manner in terms of communication strategy. It was not until 2002 that, after a three-year debate, a new basic program entitled “The future is green” was adopted. Another reason is the willingness of delegates at federal assemblies to push through radical demands against the party executive. Such surprises made long-term communication strategies difficult.

"Magdeburg" has stood since 1998 as a symbol for profiling programmatic sharpness at the expense of a necessary orientation towards social majority conditions and for tactical electoral insensitivity.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kai Arzheimer , Markus Klein : The Greens and the Petrol Price (PDF; 109 kB) , in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 30
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Joachim Raschke : The future of the Greens , Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 218
  3. ↑ a b c d e Green is change. Program for the 1998 Bundestag election ( Memento from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) , Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, Bonn 1998, p. 17
  4. ↑ a b c Green is the change. Program for the 1998 Bundestag election ( Memento from April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) , Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, Bonn 1998, p. 18
  5. ↑ Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price (PDF; 109 kB) , in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 27 f.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price (PDF; 109 kB) , in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 25
  7. ↑ Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price (PDF; 109 kB) , in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 25 f.
  8. ↑ a b c d The old stupidities , Der Spiegel 14/98, March 30, 1998
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price, in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 26
  10. ↑ a b c Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price, in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 28
  11. ↑ a b c Joachim Raschke: The future of the Greens , Frankfurt am Main 2001, p. 219
  12. ↑ Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price, in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 27
  13. ↑ Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price, in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 21
  14. ↑ Kai Arzheimer, Markus Klein: The Greens and the Petrol Price, in: ZA-Information (45/1999), p. 45
  15. ↑ Christoph Egle: Learning under stress. Politics and program of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , in: The red-green project , ed. v. Christoph Egle, Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 99
  16. ↑ The future is green. ( Memento from January 28, 2013 on WebCite ) (PDF; 617 kB) ed. v. Alliance 90 / The Greens, Berlin 2002
  17. ↑ Christoph Egle: Learning under stress. Politics and program of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , in: The red-green project , ed. v. Christoph Egle, Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 98 f.