European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Principled politicians

by Jerome a Paris
Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 03:30:13 AM EST

From the FT:

Greens refuse to drop policies for power role
Leaders of Germany's Green party said yesterday they would not abandon their principles of environmental protection and social justice to join a coalition led by opposition Christian Democrat chief Angela Merkel.(...)

"We feel that, in difficult circumstances, we have kept our support because of the policies we stand for, and we are not now about to compromise these and disappoint our voters," Ms Dückert said.(...)

Mr Fischer argued this week that returning to the opposition benches would be "completely normal. I have no problem with that".
He pointed to differences with the CDU and FDP on nuclear power, renewable energy, welfare state reform and Turkey's membership of the European Union as stumbling blocks to a possible coalition.

Fancy that! Fighting for your ideas, and then not giving up on them when you are offered a seat at the table...

This is especially important as the Greens have shown that their ideas are not outside the mainstream and can be implemented on the national stage (their energy policies for one, with the phasing out of nuclear and the strong support for renewables). They have been in power, in a coalition, which does mean they had to make some compromises, but not on things that were the most important.

Good for them.

Oh, and as a side note:

The party has 51 MPs, including 29 women, in the new parliament.

. Home
. About
. Contact
. New User Guide
. FAQ
. ET Editorial Guidelines
. Search
. Search (Google)

Username:
Password:

. Make a new account
. Reset password

Principled politicians | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

Good post - and the last, wow, I didn't realise that!

(I just checked; in the Left Party, it's 'just' 26 women out of 54 MPs.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 08:47:01 AM EST

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

Jérôme, by the way, any similar statistics from France?

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 08:47:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

It's pretty bad in France. The law says that parties now have to field at least 40% of candidates from either sex, or pay fines, and botht he UMP (right wng) and the Socialists have chosen to pay the fines, or to field female candidates in unwinnable seats.

The other parties, including the greens and the communist party, are doing better in that respect (the greens are probably close to parity, although I don't have the numbers right now).

The problem is that our greens are hopelessly divided and incoherent on a number of topics, and thus much less credible than their German counterparts. I'd never vote for them in France, whereas in Germany I'd probably vote for them (I hope that they will field Daniel Cohn-Bendit in France for the next election - now that would be something!)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 09:10:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

The law says that parties now have to field at least 40%

.
Wow, that's a quota then. I wouldn't have thought they would have such laws.

by mimi on Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 01:23:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

There are 70 women in the U.S. House of Representatives, out of 435 members altogether. There are 14 women in the Senate, out of 100 members. That's about 15% in both cases--without any quota system.

There have never been any women presidents or vice presidents.

by asdf on Wed Sep 21st, 2005 at 05:09:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Principled politicians (none / 0)

In the last Bundestag, the lowest figure for female MPs was the 23% for the CDU/CSU, SPD was at around 40% (I found these figures yesterday) - don't know about the current ones.

However, the Schröder government was dominated by macho men, and since earlier this year when there was change in Schleswig-Holstein state, all of the state PMs are men too... the Greens are unique for having females among the leaders, too.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 05:37:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Disagree (none / 0)

Politics is all about compromise, or you'll get nowhere. Play smart and win. Be dogmatic and lose.

And giving up on nuclear energy seems to me a bad idea, as long as there are no non-greenhouse gasses alternatives available. Global warming is a much bigger threat than a hypothetical nuclear leakage from deposite places in year 2300. (We'll probably have the techonology to deal with it then, if we survived global warming)

by swedish liberal on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 10:04:39 AM EST

Re: Disagree (none / 0)

And giving up on nuclear energy seems to me a bad idea, as long as there are no non-greenhouse gasses alternatives available.

Heh, that "as long as" is not valid. And the German Greens did more than anyone else for that to be the case.

Global warming is a much bigger threat than a hypothetical nuclear leakage from deposite places in year 2300.

Global warming may be over by 2300.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 10:16:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Disagree (none / 0)

Well, I agree.

Renewable energy is not quite there when it comes to providing reliable baseload electricity.

Also, I do not believe that you can do a radical overhaul of a massive infrastructure such as energy production that quickly. You will have to go through several transitory periods, and until renewables can pick up a dominant share of the energy production mix, you will need to rely on traditional forms of energy for a little while.

I am more concerned with burning more oil (provided there is enough left) and coal than a moderate increase in nuclear energy.

'La fin désastreuse a répondu aux moyens indignes' Germain Tillion

by Rom on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 11:36:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Disagree (none / 0)

Regarding baseload: the changeover to renewables with their intermittance means a change in the whole structure of electricity production, not "unreliability" as propagandised by traditional producers. The production of wind and solar can be predicted with reasonable precision for baseload scheduling on a 24-hour scale. In fact, one of the two Danish network owners (not Green utopists in any way) prepared a study that showed that wind can supply 50% of all electricity. It's currently at around 20% there; it is higher in certain regions, for example 30% in a Northern German state - so it's not like a high percentage of renewables is untested in practice. (It's not in France.)

Regarding radical overhaul, I am thinking of decades too (two decades, at most). However, what you fail to consider is that moving from coal/gas to nuclear would be such a radical overhaul (except in France) too, and it woud take longer than say to wind - building a nuclear plant usually takes 5-10 years and incredible sums of money, while the aim is for an at least 30-year period for paying that back (for wind that is usually put at 20 years).

Change to nuclear won't influence oil use. Change from coal to nuclear would be very little in France, but much bigger elsewhere - not moderate. In fact, if that happened, we would not just face Peak Oil, but Peak Uranium too. Nuclear is a dead-end in my opinion even as an energy solution, not just as an unsolved pollution problem.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Fri Sep 23rd, 2005 at 07:18:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Disagree (none / 0)

at lest for Germany it works, and might work in future, afterall energy produced out of renewable energy sources exceeeds already energy produced out of nuclear power. It is the staggering figure of 6.4%

there was a diary about this the other day. I had no idea there were only this few nucelar power stations in Germany...

by PeWi on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 12:53:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Disagree (none / 0)

Yes, it is low. However, Germany also imports power from France so its real dependence on nuclear energy is a little higher.
On questions of principle - I happen to strongly back nuclear energy, and in an imaginary world I'd love a compromise where the Greens and Union reached a compromise of reversing the Ausstieg while intensifying the growth of renewables. In the real world that's just not possible. The Greens were built on opposition to nuclear power and changing its view would be political suicide, not to mention going against the basic beliefs of its leaders. Might as well ask the FDP to endorse large tax hikes for the wealthy.

by MarekNYC on Thu Sep 22nd, 2005 at 01:39:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

No German need for French nuclear power (none / 1)

You are repeating an argument peddled by the nuclear lobby that is totally against the facts, since it is based on a blatantly out-of-context sampling of energy statistics.

In 2003 for example, imports from France totalled 20.2 TWh, that's just 3.3% of the total German production. However, according to VDEW, most of that transited Germany to third countries (the Netherlands and Italy), and wasn't destined for German consumers.

Furthermore, even that part which went for Germany means little of Germany's total export/import balance isn't considered. That balance is positive! In 2003, a total of 53.7 TWh was exported, and 45.7 TWh imported; in 2004, it was 51.5 TWh exports vs 44.2 Twh imports.

Finally, just as nuclear energy can be transited, so can renewable energy. Transfers between countries are one of the possible solutions to reduce the impact of wind(/sun/wave) intermittance.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Fri Sep 23rd, 2005 at 07:34:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: No German need for French nuclear power (none / 0)

BTW, Denmark's total electricity export/import balance (not just that with Germany) is positive too - even tough they have a much higher ratio of wind and zero nuclear.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

by DoDo on Fri Sep 23rd, 2005 at 07:36:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Principled politicians | 14 comments (14 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Go to: [ European Tribune Homepage : Top of page : Top of comments ]