Success of Greens heralds wake-up call for rivals of all parties

The dust hasn’t fully settled yet after last week’s European elections, but the consequences of the messages sent out by electorates will be far-reaching, and in many instances, fairly immediate. The Greens can be seen as the big winners, having tapped in to the widespread voter desire for a more radical approach to saving our planet and addressing burning social injustices.

In Germany the two big parties in Berlin’s governing coalition were caught badly on the hop. Shortly before the election, a 26 year-old blogger and YouTuber with blue hair and an orange hoodie released a video excoriating the climate change policies of the SDP and the CDU/CSU, which has since been viewed nearly 14 million times.

Both parties suffered heavy losses in the election, not least because of the highly detailed accusations of the young video ‘influencer’ Rezo, but in particular as a result of their reaction to what they viewed as an amateur assault on their ‘adult’ profession, while exposing their woeful ignorance of the power of new social media channels to connect with the voting public.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the national party leader of the CDU and Angela Merkel’s heir apparent as chancellor, probably dealt her future political prospects a fatal blow by publicly questioning the right of media, analogue and digital, to express their opinions so forthrightly in the immediate run-up to an important election. She has been back-tracking furiously since, desperate to engage with the massive criticism directed at her and fearful of the pending three elections in the eastern states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia that she has to face this year.

Her party has been made to look thoroughly out of touch with the voters and their concerns. It will not be easy to reverse this impression before suffering further electoral setbacks. Within the space of a week, AKK, as she is known, no longer has the look of a future chancellor about her.

Her coalition partner, Andrea Nahles of the SPD, also looks like toast as her party’s leader. Never has her party received so few votes as at last weekend, when it polled 15.8% - a figure it last reached 132 years ago under Kaiser Wilhelm I. To add insult to injury, it lost the state election in Bremen on the same day to the CDU, having ruled the city-state uninterrupted for more than 70 years. Meetings next week will likely decide her fate, as party members vote whether to retain her or not. Chaos could ensue, when she fails to secure a mandate but no challenger steps up to the plate. Meanwhile, the head of the party’s youth wing appears nightly on television talk shows criticising his own party and openly advocating strict limitations on property ownership, as well as expropriating German corporations.

The election result highlighted just how critical environmentalism has become for European politics. Germany’s Greens doubled their share of the national vote to 20.5%, a remarkable result given the exceptionally high voter turnout of 61.4%. They now have 21 MEP, ten more than in 2014, while the SDP lost 12 seats and the CDU/CSU lost five. The Green voting bloc in the European Parliament are the new kingmakers, with all the centrist parties now dependent on their support.

Apart from being perceived as being competent on climate change, their stance on Europe, racism and the far-right has gained them committed followers, and is turning them into a new political force. Their persistent monitoring of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and embracing of popular movements like the striking Friday schoolchildren have brought them valuable street cred among voters, who see a different party than the outdated image of the Birkenstock-sandalled, muesli-eating, tree-hugging eco-warriors.

Under their new leaders Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, elected early last year, the party has clamped down on in-fighting between rival wings and now presents a much more polished, integrated look – in contrast to the divisive squabbling undermining the big centrist parties. Green inroads into power have been particularly impressive in the big cities, at least in the western states, where they tightened their grip on numerous local councils in the municipal elections that took place on the same day. In Stuttgart, home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, the Greens are now the largest party, and they head a majority Green coalition in Stuttgart’s prosperous state of Baden-Württemberg.

In the eastern states, the upcoming elections will show whether they can translate this success into the traditional eastern heartlands, where the AfD have a stronger hold on voter affections. But the Greens will certainly be ambitious for a more significant role in the next national elections after a long absence, as a junior coalition partner in a number of possible political constellations.

Given these political realities, the concerns of the real estate industry are likely to find themselves pushed further down the priority list of politicians pandering to the demands of a public suffering from a housing shortage and rampant price and rent increases. Berlin, in particular, with its leftist traditions and burgeoning population, is particularly susceptible to populist over-reaction.

Anecdotal evidence is mounting of investors pulling back on development plans, judging the situation to be too fraught with headaches and burdensome regulation. This is the last thing Berlin needs, as it tries to build more affordable housing to accommodate the innovative young workers who can fuel the city’s growth.

One thing looks sure. The rise of the Greens, and the accompanying pressure on their political opponents to match their voter-friendly social outlook, will require more and more political lobbying from the array of real estate interests to ensure a fair hearing and the overdue reform of the constipated planning and regulatory structures that are in danger of strangling future growth. Not an easy path ahead.