German Greens Off to War Again.

• Author: Green, Jim
• Position: War for Oil - Green Party - War on Terrorism, 2001-

The German Greens, junior partner in a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), voted to support the deployment of 3900 German troops for the United States-led "war on terrorism" in the German parliament on November 16, 2001 and again at a national Greens conference on November 24-25.

Earlier in 2001, the SPD had to rely on support from conservative parties--the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP)--to win parliamentary support to send about 450 German soldiers to Macedonia. Nineteen SPD members and five Greens voted against the deployment.

This time, SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder raised the stakes, announcing on November 13, 2001 that the vote on German military involvement in the "war on terrorism" would be tied to a vote of confidence in the government.

The CDU and the FDP decided to vote against the motion, even though they support a German military contribution to the "war on terrorism." CDU leader Angela Merkel said, "Whoever links a legislative issue to a vote of confidence is irresponsible and is at the end of his rope."

Schroeder expected the Greens, and the pacifist wing of the SPD, to fall into line. If the confidence motion was voted down because of opposition from some Greens, the SPD could replace the Greens with the FDP in a new coalition government. Schroeder keeps the Greens docile with periodic hints that he might replace them with the FDP. A new election was another possibility.

Whatever the outcome of the parliamentary vote, Schroeder and the SPD were likely to be strengthened. For the Greens, however, an early election would spell the end for all 47 of their MPs if the party did not attract 5% of the vote, the minimum required for parliamentary representation. Recent opinion polls show Green support hovering. around 5%, down from 6.7% at the 1998 federal election.

Only eight Green or SPD MPs had to vote against the parliamentary motion for it to be lost. And eight Green MPs issued a statement over the November 10--11 weekend--just before Schroeder's announcement that the vote on military deployment would double as a vote of confidence in the government--saying that the war was not serving its intended purpose and was hurting the Afghan people.

Other Green MPs had also expressed opposition. A November 8 report in the Frankfurter Aligemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper predicted that as many as 20 Green MPs and 5 SPD MPs might vote against military deployment.

German foreign minister and Greens leader Joschka Fischer threatened to resign if Green MPs did not support German military deployment (a move which renewed a debate as to whether Fischer might find a new political home in the SPD).

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