Greens in Lübeck: Election campaign starts with sharp criticism of the competition!

On January 7, 2025, Alliance 90/The Greens started their election campaign in Lübeck with an unexpectedly large crowd of more than 1,500 participants, although originally only 500 to 600 had been expected. A journalist reported that hundreds of people had to be left standing in front of the hall.

The party leadership used the opportunity to sharply criticize the SPD and Union candidates for chancellor. The Green Party leader Felix Banaszak described the Union candidate Friedrich Merz as someone who only describes problems, while Chancellor Olaf Scholz does nothing to face these problems. Banaszak also praised the Green Party's top candidate Robert Habeck as a problem solver.

Criticism of the competition and demands for the future

At the event, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock warned against a naive foreign policy aimed at Scholz's handling of international challenges. Banaszak and Habeck jointly criticized the Union's plans for tax cuts, which Habeck classified as not being counter-financed, and pointed to an annual deficit of around 100 billion euros.

Habeck also criticized the non-extension of the rent control as a “serious mistake” and warned that Germany could end up in a similar political situation to Austria, where the FPÖ came to government. The Greens announced that they would adopt their “Growing Together” election program at a special party conference in Berlin at the end of the month, with the main focus on greater educational equality in order to reform the federal education system in Germany.

The speakers at the event deliberately chose the form of Siezen in order to also address non-party members. During the speech, attention was drawn to the pressing issues and challenges that the Greens want to address in their election program before the federal election takes place on February 23, 2025.