What is Happening to the Green Parties of Europe? What Went Wrong?

Aisha Moon
Nov 14, 2024
4 min read

Green Parties Suffer a Major Setback

In the European Parliament elections held in June 2024, the Green Parties suffered a setback and were reduced to a 7% vote share. Their support has declined in 10 countries, 14 where they have a presence. The most disconcerting feature of this election is that a section of the young adults in these countries have shifted their loyalty from the Green Parties to the extreme right parties.

In the elections in France, Italy, Germany, France, and Hungary, the extreme right and ultra-nationalist parties had their field day. The Green parties have been decimated, and their environment reform agenda will now be put on the back burner at this crucial time of looming, planet-scale climate disaster.

The Disillusionment with the Green Parties

By 2024, the common voters around the world found themselves strangled to the point of slipping into extreme poverty by the energy crisis caused by wars, inflation, the Covid 19 pandemic, and the steep rise in the cost of living. The green transition began to look like a luxury that the struggling masses could not afford to support and sustain. Parallel to this, the Green leaders in power found themselves coerced to make environmentally unpopular decisions in the face of the energy crisis.

In Germany, the Green Party had joined the ruling coalition in 2021, and it was lauded as the ushering in of a new era in world politics. The Party, however, failed its supporters vehemently when it approved the demolition of the village, Lützerath, for coal mining by the country’s biggest power company, RWE. Newspapers described this incident as a symbol of the challenge that lies ahead for the green parties around the world, of striking a balance between idealism and pragmatism when they enter mainstream politics.

What forced the hands of the Green Party to approve the coal mines was a Russian cutting back on gas supplies. The power shortage compelled the politicians to revert to electricity production using the once-abandoned coal stations. The ruling coalition came into an agreement with RWE, the country’s biggest power giant, with a caveat that the company would end coal use in power production eight years earlier than what was agreed. The Green politicians presented this agreement as a win-win solution, but the environmental activists refused to be convinced. In Austria also, the Green Party Energy Minister had proposed reopening the coal mines to tackle the energy crisis without success.

On the other end of the spectrum, climate-positive initiatives of the Green party in the ruling coalition in Germany also raised opposition. In Germany, amidst a bleak economic scenario, a new law pushed ahead by the Greens made it mandatory for newly installed home heating systems to use 65% renewable energy from next year onwards. Naturally, the economically deprived sections saw this law as too idealistic for them to afford.

The dwindling support for the Greens was evident in the recent national elections held in Europe. In Germany’s Bavaria, the Green vote share fell from 18% in 2018 to 14.4% in the 2023 regional election. In regional elections in Germany’s Hesse, the Greens had a 20.1% vote share in 2019, whereas it fell to 14.8% in 2023. In Luxembourg also, the Greens scored poorly, with their vote share reduced from 15.1% in 2018 to 8.6% in 2023. In Finland, the vote share declined from 11.5% to 7% between 2018 and 2023. In the Netherlands also, the socialist and green parties coalition was defeated by the opposing ultra-nationalist party in the national elections.

The Lack of a Green Opposition and the Disconnect from the Masses

In 2022, according to the annual report of Global Greens, a partnership of the world’s green political parties and political movements, there were 18,312 elected Green representatives at transnational, national, regional, and local levels. There were also 400 Green Parliamentarians in 25 national-level parliaments. The United States Green Party is an insignificant political entity with only 200000 registered members, according to 2022 figures. Europe remains the stronghold of the Green political awakening despite the poor performance of Green parties in the 2024 elections.

What happens when a Green party enters a ruling coalition is the disappearance of a Green opposition. These parties had risen from the student protests and the anti-nuclear agitations of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Given the apocalyptic dimensions that the climate crisis of the planet is gaining, one would imagine Green politics to grow exponentially in recent times. However, the Greens have lost one-third of the seats they had in the European Parliament in the 2024 elections.

Most political observers cite a single reason for this failure - the Greens are out of touch with the people and their issues; they have not evolved to be truly concerned about the issues outside green politics. As a result, the cost of living crisis and immigration fears dominated the elections rather than climate change and green issues despite extreme weather events haunting Europe on a day-to-day basis.

The Greens have fared better in Scandinavian countries. With the influence of the Green parties taking a hard hit, the coming days will be testing time for the European Green Deal policies.