Red-green coalition
A red-green (short: red-green ) or green-red coalition (short: green-red ) is a government coalition between a social democratic or socialist party and a green party .
Terms
In accordance with common usage, the “color” of the larger coalition partner is mentioned first in terms of party coalitions, followed by the smaller partner or the smaller partner. According to this, in a red-green coalition - in the narrower sense - the social democratic or socialist party always has a majority of votes or mandates and therefore usually holds the lead in this coalition. In the opposite case, where the Green Party has a greater weight, is analogous to speak of a red-green coalition.
Germany
In Germany this means a coalition between the SPD and the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party (or their predecessor, the Greens ).
The first “green-red” coalition at state level in Germany was formed in May 2011 in Baden-Württemberg .
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Federal level
At the federal level , the SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ruled jointly from 1998 to 2005. Under Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , the Greens each appointed three federal ministers in the Schröder I and Schröder II cabinets , including the Vice Chancellor and Federal Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer .
Country level
Since the first red-green coalition at the state level was concluded in Hesse in 1985, there have been red-green state governments in ten states .
Baden-Württemberg
After the state elections in 2011 , Baden-Württemberg offered the first opportunity to form a green-red coalition led by Winfried Kretschmann ( Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen ). After the conclusion of the coalition negotiations between the two parties, the green-red coalition agreement was signed by negotiators Winfried Kretschmann and Nils Schmid on April 27, 2011 . The new state government of Prime Minister Kretschmann was sworn in on May 12, 2011 in the state parliament. In the state elections in 2016 , the coalition lost its majority. The Greens then entered into a coalition with the CDU.
Berlin
After the election to the House of Representatives in 1989 , the second red-green state government was sworn in in Berlin. However, it was not the Greens who were involved, but the Alternative List for Democracy and Environmental Protection (AL) party, which stood in Berlin until 1993. With Michaele Schreyer , Sybille Volkholz and Anne Klein, AL sent three female senators to the Momper Senate , two of whom were non-party and one member of the Greens. In November 1990, the coalition broke up after disagreements over the eviction of occupied houses .
In the election on December 2, 1990, neither red-green nor black-yellow achieved a majority, so that a grand coalition was formed under the leadership of the CDU. After almost eleven years, this coalition broke up on June 7, 2001. As a result, Klaus Wowereit formed a red-green minority government that was tolerated by the PDS . This red-green Senate only existed until January 17, 2002 and was replaced by a red-red Senate under Wowereit after the election to the House of Representatives on October 21, 2001 .
In the parliamentary elections in Berlin in 2006, the Left Party and the Greens both received just over 13 percent of the vote and each received 23 seats. Klaus Wowereit could have governed with both parties, but decided against the formation of a red-green Senate and in favor of continuing the government with the Left Party. On May 5, 2009, the SPD MP Canan Bayram announced her resignation from the SPD and the SPD parliamentary group and her move to the parliamentary group of the Greens, so that the red-red coalition only has a majority of 75 mandates compared to 74 mandates of the Opposition decreed, whereas a conceivable red-green coalition would have had a majority of 76 against 73 votes. Therefore, various SPD politicians, such as the Bundestag member and former SPD General Secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter , called for the change from red-red to red-green. However, this debate subsided with the move of the Green MP Bilkay Öney to the SPD parliamentary group on May 12, 2009 and the associated restoration of the old majority.
The red-red coalition lost its majority after the parliamentary elections in 2011, so that the election winner SPD had the choice of the coalition partner between the Greens and the CDU. After exploratory talks with both parties, Wowereit decided in favor of coalition negotiations with the Greens, despite the narrow majority in parliament. These were broken off on October 5, 2011, the first day of the negotiations, and declared a failure due to the differing views on the expansion of the city motorway.
Bremen
After the general election in June 2007, the SPD formed a red-green coalition under Jens Böhrnsen after twelve years of grand coalition . This coalition formation was the first red-green coalition at the state level after the red-green defeat at the federal level in 2005. In the citizenship election in 2011, the alliance was confirmed with a significantly larger majority and continued even after heavy losses of both coalition partners in the 2015 election.
Hamburg
As a result of the 1997 state elections in Hamburg , a red-green government was formed under Ortwin Runde , which ruled until 2001. The GAL had sent four senators to the Senate round .
After the SPD lost its absolute majority in the 2015 mayor elections, the GAL is once again governing in a Red-Green coalition and is represented by three departments in the second Senate of Scholz .
Hesse
The first red-green coalition came about in Hesse (after 18 months of tolerating an SPD minority government by the Greens) on December 12, 1985 under Prime Minister Holger Börner . The only green minister in the Börner III cabinet was Environment Minister Joschka Fischer . The coalition broke up on February 9, 1987 after 14 months. In the state elections on April 5, 1987, the CDU and FDP achieved a majority, and Walter Wallmann became the first Christian Democratic Prime Minister of Hesse.
Four years later, after the state elections in 1991, there was a new edition of red-green under Prime Minister Hans Eichel , which was confirmed in 1995. In 1999 the CDU politician Roland Koch was able to move into the State Chancellery with an election campaign against red-green politics at state and federal level.
In the state elections on January 27, 2008, Prime Minister Koch lost his absolute majority and did not achieve a majority with the FDP. Subsequently, the SPD state chairman Andrea Ypsilanti tried to form a red-green minority government tolerating a third party (e.g. the left ), which failed in November 2008 due to a lack of support from within its own ranks.
Lower Saxony
In June 1990, Waltraud Schoppe and Jürgen Trittin , the first green ministers after Joschka Fischer, were sworn in in Lower Saxony . At that time, Gerhard Schröder became Prime Minister, but after the 1994 election he was able to govern for four years with an absolute majority without a coalition.
After the state election in Lower Saxony in 2013 , there was a new edition of red-green, this time under the new Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD). In this coalition, the Greens provide four of the nine ministers. The coalition lost its majority in 2017 when MP Elke Twesten moved from the Greens to the CDU. In the early election on October 15, 2017 , the red-green coalition failed to win back its majority. After the election a grand coalition was formed.
North Rhine-Westphalia
After the SPD lost its absolute majority under Prime Minister Johannes Rau in 1995 , the SPD and the Greens formed a red-green coalition there too, although Rau was not enthusiastic about this coalition according to press reports. Among other things, there were always conflicts over the lignite opencast mining ( Garzweiler II ).
After the coalition was confirmed in 2000 under Rau's successor Wolfgang Clement , Clement's successor Peer Steinbrück lost the state election in 2005, as a result of which the SPD went into opposition after 39 years. This electoral defeat of the then last red-green coalition at the state level meant that German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the SPD chairman Franz Muentefering (himself from NRW dates) for which federal elections decided that the formation of the grand coalition under Angela Merkel led .
After the state elections in 2010, in which the CDU / FDP coalition lost its majority, the SPD and the Greens, which were ten seats stronger, decided to form a minority government under SPD woman Hannelore Kraft .
After the state elections on May 13, 2012, the Red-Green ruled again with a parliamentary majority of their own. In the 2017 state elections , the SPD and the Greens together only received 37.6% of the vote, the worst result ever achieved by a state government in North Rhine-Westphalia. Both parties went into opposition.
Rhineland-Palatinate
In the state elections on March 27, 2011, the SPD lost its absolute majority with 35.7 percent of the votes under Kurt Beck . Since the Greens more than tripled their share of the vote with 15.4 percent, there was a clear red-green majority. After successful coalition negotiations and Beck's re-election as prime minister, Eveline Lemke , Irene Alt and Ulrike Höfken were sworn in as the first green ministers of Rhineland-Palatinate in the state parliament. In the state elections in 2016 , the Greens suffered heavy losses and the coalition lost its majority. The coalition was then expanded to include the FDP.
Schleswig-Holstein
After losing the absolute majority of the SPD in 1996, the SPD and the Greens formed a coalition under Heide Simonis , which was confirmed in 2000.
The 2005 state elections did not produce a clear result: Neither red-green nor black-yellow achieved a majority, so the decisive factor was how the two MPs of the Danish minority party SSW would behave. After they had agreed to tolerate the red-green minority government , a scandal broke out in the prime ministerial election on March 17, 2005 : A member of the planned coalition refused to approve Heide Simonis in four ballots. Heide Simonis then resigned after twelve years of service, her successor Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU) formed a grand coalition with the SPD. In the state elections on September 27, 2009 , the CDU and FDP received a narrow majority in parliament and formed a black-yellow coalition. Due to an unconstitutional right to vote, there had to be early elections. In the state elections on May 6, 2012 , the CDU and FDP lost their majority, while the SPD, Greens and SSW achieved a narrow majority in parliament and subsequently formed a joint coalition, the so-called coastal coalition . On June 12, 2012, Torsten Albig (SPD) was elected Prime Minister. This coalition lost its majority in the state elections in 2017 , after which a coalition of CDU, Greens and FDP was formed.
Red-green minority governments
There were red-green minority governments in Saxony-Anhalt and Berlin. Both times the government was tolerated by the PDS . This is also called the Magdeburg model , based on the government in Saxony-Anhalt (1994 to 1998) . Reinhard Höppner was Prime Minister here. This variant was practiced again in Berlin under Klaus Wowereit; in Hesse, this model failed in 2008 due to the resistance of four SPD members.
In North Rhine-Westphalia there was also a red-green minority government with the first Kraft cabinet from July 15, 2010 to June 20, 2012. However, this did not follow the Magdeburg model, as it relied on changing majorities and sought approval from both the Left Party and the CDU and FDP. At the budget deliberations in 2012, the opposition unanimously refused to approve the budget, so that the state parliament dissolved. The government lacked one vote for the majority in the state parliament. In the new state election on May 13, 2012 , the SPD and the Greens obtained a majority of seats in the state parliament.
Unused red-green majorities
From 1991 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2006 there was a majority in the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament for the SPD and the Greens. SPD top candidate Rudolf Scharping decided after the election victory in 1991 to form a social-liberal coalition . His successor Kurt Beck also continued the cooperation with the FDP from 1994 to 2006. After the 1996 election, the FDP decided against a government with the CDU, which would have had a majority because of the strength of the FDP, and five years later the SPD would rather govern with the FDP than with the Greens. In the state elections in 2006 , the Greens failed to get into the state parliament and the SPD achieved an absolute majority in the state parliament.
In Hamburg, Henning Voscherau preferred the Statt party as a government partner between 1993, despite the red-green majority. After the Statt party left the citizenry in the 1997 general election, and the SPD regional association decided to join the red-green coalition, Voscherau resigned as first mayor.
In Bremen in 1995, a narrow majority voted for a coalition with the CDU instead of a coalition with the Greens when the SPD voted. Even after the citizenship elections in 1999 and 2003, the SPD did not form a coalition with the Greens but with the CDU, despite the mathematical possibility.
The red-green majority in the Berlin House of Representatives, which existed from 2006 to 2016, was also not used politically. The then governing mayor, Klaus Wowereit , continued his red-red government after the 2006 parliamentary elections . In 2011 there was again a - albeit narrow - red-green majority, but this time no additional red-red majority. After the SPD had exploratory talks with both the Greens and the CDU, Wowereit initially opted for a red-green government, but broke off the coalition talks on the first day of negotiations and formed a grand coalition with the CDU.
Red-green as a social project
The term red-green is sometimes associated with a social project in which members of the 68 generation such as B. Joschka Fischer wanted to march through the institutions in order to achieve more tolerance towards minorities in society , greater acceptance towards the emancipation of women and men and more awareness towards the environment . In agricultural policy, the agricultural turnaround and in energy policy the energy turnaround are associated with red-green politics.
In a positive context, the term is associated with the developments mentioned; in a negative context, red-green is primarily associated with utopianism and an uncritical or even blind attitude towards the integration problems of immigrants . From this socio-political point of view, the project red-green with the lost election of the government coalition at federal level between the SPD and the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen party in the federal elections in 2005 is seen as either failed or successful , depending on how the issues are weighted .
Austria
In Austria a coalition of the SPÖ and the Greens .
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At the state level, a red-green coalition in the narrower sense was possible for the first time in 2004 in Salzburg . However, this option was rejected by the SPÖ under Gabi Burgstaller in favor of a red-black coalition.
In cities like Linz or Salzburg there has also been a free majority for some years, although in some cases there was a red-green cooperation.
Vienna
In the state and municipal council elections in Vienna in 2010 , the Viennese SPÖ lost its absolute majority. As a result, there were exploratory talks between the SPÖ and the Vienna Greens . The first red-green coalition negotiations at the state level began on October 22nd. On November 12, 2010 the red-green coalition agreement for Vienna was presented.
From November 25, 2010, the SPÖ ruled under Mayor Michael Häupl with the Greens under Vice Mayor Maria Vassilakou in Vienna.
The new edition of the Red-Green coalition formed after the state and municipal council elections in Vienna in 2015 was sworn in on November 24, 2015 with the provincial government of Häupl VI .
On May 24, 2018, Michael Ludwig succeeded Michael Häupl as mayor, and on June 26, 2019, Birgit Hebein succeeded Ludwig as vice mayor in the state government and city senate .
Carinthia
In Carinthia , after the state elections in 2013, there was a narrow red-green majority in the state parliament and the state government. At the beginning of March, the SPÖ and the Greens agreed on a cooperation, talks for a three-party coalition with the ÖVP as part of a red-black-green coalition to ensure a two-thirds majority followed. In the state elections in 2018, the Greens left the state parliament and then from the state government.
Norway
In Norway the coalition of the Arbeiderpartiet , the Sosialistisk Venstreparti and the Senterpartiet is known as the red-green coalition.
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In Norway from 2005 to 2013 there was a coalition of the social democratic labor party (Ap), the green socialist Sosialistisk Venstreparti (SV) and the farmers' party Senterpartiet (Sp). In Norway, the Sosialistisk Venstreparti largely fulfills the role of a green party, while the green party Miljøpartiet De Grønne has only been represented in parliament since 2013. In Norway, ecological issues are also strongly represented in the established parties, especially in the Senterpartiet.
Iceland
In Iceland, a red-green coalition consisting of the alliance and the left-green movement ruled in the government of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir II from 2009 to 2013 .
Sweden
A red-green minority government has ruled Sweden since autumn 2014.
literature
- Christoph Egle, Tobias Ostheim, Reimut Zohlnhöfer (eds.): The red-green project. A balance sheet of the Schröder government 1998–2002 , VS Verlag , Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 978-3-531-13791-9 .
- Christoph Egle, Reimut Zohlnhöfer (Ed.): End of the red-green project. A balance sheet of the Schröder government 2002-2005 , VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14875-5 .
- Matthias Geyer, Dirk Kurbjuweit , Cordt Schnibben : Operation Red-Green. History of a political adventure , Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Munich 2005, ISBN 3-421-05782-6 .
- Gudrun Heinrich: Red-Green in Berlin. The alternative list in government responsibility 1989-1990 , Schüren Verlag , Marburg 1993, ISBN 3-89472-079-4 .
- Thomas Krumm: Political communalization through symbolic politics. The formation of the red-green cooperation in Hesse from 1983 to 1991 , VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-8244-4601-4 .
- Loccumer Initiative of Critical Scientists : Red-Green - Another Project? , Offizin, Hannover 2001, ISBN 3-930345-25-0 . (Critical Interventions, 5)
- Richard Meng : Left of center. What are the chances of red-green? , Schüren Verlag, Marburg 1993, ISBN 3-89472-251-7 .
- Richard Meng (Ed.): Model red-green? Evaluation of an experiment , VSA-Verlag , Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-87975-407-1 .
- Hugo Müller-Vogg : Claim & Reality. Rot-Grün 1998–2002 , Aktuell, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-87959-560-7 .
- Heribert Prantl : Red-Green. A first balance sheet , Hoffmann and Campe , Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-455-10383-9 .
- Werner Reutter (Ed.): Germany on the Road to Normalcy. Policies and Politics of the Red-Green Federal Government (1998-2002) , Palgrave, New York [u. a.] 2004, ISBN 1-4039-6439-4 . (The NYU European Studies)
- Sven Siefken: Expert commissions in the political process. A balance sheet on the red-green federal government 1998-2005 , VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-15691-0 .
- Antje Vollmer in conversation with Hans W. Kilz: Immigrated to their own country. What remains of red-green , Pantheon Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-570-55015-1 .
- Heinz J. Wiegand: The agricultural and energy transition. Balance sheet and history of red-green projects , Lang, Frankfurt am Main [u. a.] 2006, ISBN 978-3-631-55713-6 .
- Edgar Wolfrum: red-green in power. Germany 1998-2005. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65437-4 .
Web links
- Political color theory ( Memento from March 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Reform for the sake of reform? The red-green government years - a historical balance Interview with Prof. Dr. Edgar Wolfrum
Individual evidence
- ↑ State election: Green-red triumphs in Baden-Württemberg . In: Spiegel Online . March 27, 2011
- ^ Coalition agreement between BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN and the SPD Baden-Württemberg (PDF; 1.3 MB)
- ↑ Der Spiegel 22/1999 "I am the new Bremen"
- ↑ Heinz J. Wiegand: The agricultural and energy transition. Balance sheet and history of red-green projects, Lang, Frankfurt am Main [among others] 2006, ISBN 978-3-631-55713-6
- ↑ Rosa Winkler-Hermaden: The brave way . In: The Standard . October 22, 2010
- ↑ Red-green sealed in Vienna . In: ORF . November 12, 2010
- ↑ orf.at - red-green starts on November 24th . Article dated November 16, 2015, accessed November 16, 2015.
- ↑ Hebein elected city councilor. Retrieved June 26, 2019 .
- ↑ Reinforced block formation , Clemens Bomsdorf, Das Parlament, No. 39–40, September 21, 2009