Terry Reintke was “16 or 17 years old” at the height of the protests against plans to expand the coal-fired power plant in Datteln, a small municipality half an hour’s drive from his own, Gelsenkirchen, in the Ruhr basin. Those activists did not understand that green Germany continued to build plants to burn coal, the fossil fuel that contributes the most to climate change, at the turn of the century. She, despite being only a teenager, doesn’t either. That anti-central movement was the trigger for an environmentalist vocation that led her towards the Greens, the party of which she is today co-president in the European Parliament.
But Reintke, 36, is also keenly aware of where he comes from. The Ruhr basin, marked by coal mining and the steel industry, was for many decades the heart of the German industrial boom. Until the crisis arrived, the closure of the mines and a difficult transition towards renewable energies that left many in the lurch. Reintke, who is running, for now alone, to lead the green candidacy of the next European elections, in June 2024, is clear that social justice must go hand in hand with the climate fight: “It comes from my heart. Even if there were no climate change, I would dedicate myself to fighting for a more egalitarian society,” he says in a conversation from Strasbourg.
The Greens are aware that they will have to win over the working class if they want to be influential in Europe, and Reintke, part of the most left wing of the party, is determined to fight that battle if, as everything seems to indicate, in February she is confirmed as spitzenkandidatin of your group. “We are going to make it clear to people who are experiencing difficulties, who are having a hard time making ends meet, that we have an offer for them in the next elections.”
Polls predict that the European Greens will not repeat the strong results of 2019, which gave them their current 72 seats. The survey aggregator Political predicts between 48 and 50. The trend is similar in Reintke’s native Germany, where The Greens, part of the Executive in a coalition with social democrats and liberals, are around 15% of voting intention when in April 2021 they came to lead the polls with 25%. The responsibilities of government have worn them down and they have not been able to shake off the reputation of wanting to prohibit things—eating meat, traveling by plane—and forcing citizens to make large outlays, such as changing gas boilers for more expensive electric heat pumps. .
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Reintke, who participated in the negotiations of the coalition agreement, recognizes that they have not been able to explain their policies and that the idea is spreading that they are not sensitive to the economic cost that these have for the popular classes. In those meetings, he says that the social democrats fought for two or three social measures and left the rest to them, something that citizens are unaware of. “Many people think that green people are only interested in he green deal [pacto verde], and it is not true. We have to put what we really stand for to the foreground to earn their trust and tell them that we know that times are difficult, but that we are going to support them in this transformation that will improve their lives in the future.”
Advisor to MEP Ulrich Schneider at 24, elected MEP herself at 27, her career has been brilliant. As co-president of the group since October 2022, her colleagues assure that she leads them “with a clear vision, always leaving room for debate and listening to different perspectives,” says Rasmus Andresen, also German, who knows her well. “In other parties they respect her as a fair, although tough, negotiator,” he adds.
Reintke became known beyond Germany when in September 2017, just before the MeToo movement began, she spoke openly about sexual harassment in the European Parliament. She recounted her own experience with a bully at the Duisburg train station and managed to open a discussion about harassment in the European institutions. In addition to the feminist struggle, Reintke, who lives as a couple with fellow French Green politician Mélanie Vogel, co-chairs the Parliament intergroup that defends LGTBI rights.
The same frankness with which she speaks about these issues is used by this Political Science graduate to refer to the extreme right, which in her country exceeds 20% of voting intentions and has the rest of the parties in suspense. “Next year we will have to fight with all our strength against a shift to the right in the European Parliament,” Reintke stressed this Friday in her speech at the congress of the German Greens in Karlsruhe. And she warned that parts of the European People’s Party (EPP) are seeking majorities with far-right parties.
This complicity is, at least in Germany, unthinkable today, since all parties refuse to cooperate with the extreme right. “My position is one of resistance. I think they should not play any role in the political landscape,” he says. But it is not the only strategy. “We have to get the conservative forces throughout Europe to distance themselves from them and from the progressive parties to offer an alternative to the voters.”
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