Competition between faction and party: Green party leadership wants to expand the center of power

The Green tradition of dual leadership and the separation of offices has advantages: there are more shoulders on which the workload can be shared. But it also has disadvantages. There are now so many Greens claiming a front row seat that it is sometimes difficult to keep track.

The party leadership around Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour now wants to center power more strongly in their house. The focus should be drawn from the parliamentary group back to the federal headquarters of the party, which is located in Berlin on the square in front of the new gate, just a few kilometers from the Reichstag building.

A personnel decision in particular stands for this. Chiara Tummeley, previously office manager of the Greens chairwoman Lang, will become head of the strategy department “Politics and Analysis”. In addition, according to Tagesspiegel information, the office creates an additional position, Tummeley should get a deputy. This position has therefore not yet been filled.

The previous head of the strategy department, Melanie Haas, is moving to the Federal Minister for Family Affairs. The federal office confirmed the change in personnel to the Tagesspiegel.

Tummeley and her deputy are said to be taking care of contact with the ministries in addition to the programmatic orientation – this makes it clear that the decision is motivated by power strategy. So far, the parliamentary group in particular has received a lot of public attention after traffic light decisions.

Before the 2021 federal election, the undisputed center of power for the Greens was the federal office, when Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock led the party. The faction was in the supporting role. But Habeck is now Economics Minister and Vice Chancellor, Baerbock is Foreign Minister of the traffic light coalition. This dissolved the previous power architecture of the Greens and has since been rearranged.

Habeck and Baerbock’s relationship is considered to be strained

Habeck and Baerbock’s relationship suffered as a result of the 2021 federal election campaign. Back then, Baerbock had decided to stand as a candidate for chancellor, against the will of Habeck, who himself would have liked to become a candidate for chancellor. They should still talk to each other, but the trust between them is gone.

The Habeck-Baerbock axis is no longer a power factor in the party. The chancellor candidacy in 2025 will probably be decided between Baerbock and Habeck, so the old competition is thriving again.

The parliamentary group is therefore more often the focus of attention because MPs oppose the plans of the members of the government more often than the party leadership. They usually follow the government course.

An example: the dispute over the extension of the lifetime of nuclear power plants. While the Habeck parliamentary group made it clear in late summer that they would not support the stretching operation of the three nuclear power plants, the party leadership was of the opinion that stretching operation would be justifiable. Habeck had to bow to the faction. The third nuclear power plant was only able to go into operation after a word of authority from Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

For the time being, it remains to be seen whether the party leadership can achieve its goal of expanding the party headquarters into a center of power again. Not everyone is happy with their course. “How important parts of the Greens are to the fight against the climate crisis is sometimes overlooked in the federal office,” it says. How united the party and ministries often are is also viewed critically.

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