Dear friends,
you know I come from northern Germany. There’s also the saying “not booed is enough applause” – so you see me overwhelmed.
I thank the federal board for putting this on the agenda, and I especially thank Steffi for her tribute. I thank her for the appreciation, especially of what I pointed out in my last speech in the Bundestag: it remains our historic duty to ensure that fascists and anti-democrats never again gain power in this country.
As an older person, you tend to compare everything to the past, so I want to say something about Steffi. When we amended the Federal Nature Conservation Act, it was easy back then; nature conservation was considered a consensus topic. I had friends in the CSU, like Mr. Goppel, who supported me. I had many conservative state ministers, even though the law was not subject to approval, who supported me. Today, you have it infinitely harder than we did! We experienced this spring how right-wing populist farmers made the country believe that plowing up flowering strips was crucial for their economic future. This means that today, nature conservation, biodiversity, and species conservation are polarizing topics, and we must make it clear that only with intact nature, only with functioning biodiversity, will there continue to be agriculture in this country. And that is the truth we must speak.
Steffi and I have fought various election campaigns, she as political director, I twice as lead candidate, and now here we are again, 99 days before an election campaign. I am firmly convinced that we will make this election campaign a success. And why? Yes, because we are the Greens! Because we Greens are a challenge, we are a challenge because we have always had the courage to treat people like adults. And that also means treating them like adults by telling them uncomfortable truths, and not only telling uncomfortable truths but also proposing ways to deal with these uncomfortable truths and this uncomfortable reality and how to make it better.
And the greatest uncomfortable truth for Germany is that our prosperity model is at an end. It is the end of the idea that we produce steel and automobiles with cheap lignite and cheap Russian gas and then export them to the whole world. This model is gone and it will not come back, and there are three reasons for that: the first reason is the climate crisis, the second reason is Vladimir Putin, and the third reason is Donald Trump. In Valencia, not only 200 people died in parking garages and on the streets, but also the last climate denier was disproved! The state of the climate crisis is such that my own speeches from earlier now seem optimistic and sugarcoated. It is not our grandchildren and our children who are threatened by the climate crisis. The climate crisis is now in the process of destroying the basis for our economy and our security.
And yes, the idea of relying on cheap gas from one source made us susceptible to blackmail, and it was us Greens – it was a Green Minister of Economic Affairs, it was Robert Habeck – who managed to free us from this dependency within a year. But that first step was only a first step. Only when we are 100% renewable will we no longer be susceptible to blackmail by despots and autocrats.
And then we always believed that things would stay as they were with open markets and our exports. We didn’t realize that globalization had completely changed through China and the USA. Today, globalization is no longer about the race to the bottom. Globalization today is a competition between industrial policies, fought with subsidies, standards, and tariffs. And anyone who wants to know how it will be should listen to Trump. He will escalate precisely this policy, and our answer to that must be to finally adjust to this form of challenge.
And yesterday I heard the esteemed Wolfgang Ischinger praising us as the only party of change. That’s true; we know that security is only possible in change. But Wolfgang also said the others are in love with the status quo. I disagree – the others are not in love with the status quo; they are retro-politicians who promise everyone that things will go back to the way they never really were! There’s Sarah Wagenknecht and Alice Weidel, who promise us that we will heat with gas again and that Nord Stream 2 will be put into operation, and at their side is Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn – the Rick Grenell of German politics – who want the same thing: they want to go back to combustion cars. And while in China, 300 billion was spent on renewables last year, and Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act has mobilized 240 billion dollars of investments in green technology, they want to return to nuclear power.
Dear friends, I wonder when Friedrich Merz will call for the use of modern fax machines to limit TikTok and X.
And then there’s the SPD. They complement this list of demands with a resolute call for a scrappage bonus. Do you know what the scrappage bonus is? It is the highlight of social democratic industrial policy, but it’s always about trying to maintain an old technology instead of designing a new technology – that would be sensible.
The irresponsible thing about this retro-politics, however, is that both Merz and Scholz know that what they are saying is not true; they just believe they can’t impose it on the people. And I think we must have the courage to impose it on the people.
I am very curious about an election campaign that some will stage again as Merz against Scholz. I think Merz against Scholz, Scholz against Merz, that is a bad joke! Because the SPD is only negotiating under what conditions it will get its scrappage bonus under a Chancellor Merz, but it will depend on our result whether it is possible to lead this country into a new security, into a new prosperity, and for that, we need change.
What is so difficult about saying that if we don’t want to be blackmailed by Putin anymore, it will cost us more money? What is so difficult about saying that if we want to be independent, we must massively expand our renewables? What is so difficult about saying that if we want to continue to be a country with an automotive industry – with VW, Audi, Mercedes, and BMW – then we must finally build cheaper and better electric cars than BYD? That’s the challenge we face.
And if we don’t want to let Donald Trump blackmail us as “little China” – that’s his new term for Europe – then we must say that this Europe is not “little,” but that it is a united Europe. But that also requires stopping German solo efforts to make nice with Trump, Xi Jinping, and Putin. Then we must fight for a united and strong Europe!
Yes, it will depend on our result, it will depend on us Greens whether it is possible to bring about the necessary change and thus the necessary security for Germany and Europe. Security is only possible in change – that’s what we Greens stand for, and that’s why we have a candidate for Chancellor. Let’s get started with Robert in the election campaign! And to conclude – Claudia always quotes Ton Steine Scherben – I would rather quote Die Ärzte at the end: “You are not to blame for the world as it is, but you would be to blame if it stays that way!”