Les Jones

European Union > Green Party Losing Elections in Germany

The Greens are Wilting:

Yet a boom in wind and garbage may matter little in the face of a broad cultural shift. If Cologne University sociologist and Greens expert Markus Klein is right, Germany is in the grip of a "values rollback," away from the post-materialist values of the comfortable 1970s and '80s—including concern for the environment and minority rights—to a more conservative emphasis on achievement, responsibility, family, career and, to a small extent, even religion. Young Germans who grew up in the economically insecure 1990s, he says, worry about jobs and education, not the second-tier issues with which the Greens are identified. Already, says Klein, Green voters are concentrated in the 40-to-49 age bracket, while young voters are increasingly flocking to conservative and liberal-democratic parties. "The Greens are a one-generation project," says Klein. "Their core voters will just die out."