German Greens’ Baerbock renounces second chancellor candidacy, clearing way for Economy Minister Habeck

4 months ago 33

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said she did not intend to run again as the Greens’ candidate for chancellor at the 2025 federal election, making Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck the likely contender.

Baerbock, the Greens’ chancellor candidate in the 2021 federal election, told US broadcaster CNN on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington she wanted to concentrate on her current job.

“The world is a different one than at the last German national elections,” Baerbock said. “In the light of Russia’s war of aggression, and now also about the dramatic situation in the Middle East, it needs more diplomacy, not less”.

“Therefore, in these times of crisis, I believe that political responsibility means – as a foreign minister – not being tied up in a candidacy for chancellorship. Instead, continue to use all my energy as foreign minister,” she added.

Her waiver clears the way for Habeck – the most senior Green minister – to seek the party’s candidacy, which he intended already last time, but ultimately let Baerbock take the lead during a closed-door meeting.

In his first reaction to her announcement, Habeck praised Bearbock’s “excellent” performance as Foreign Minister and said the decision would be taken within the party’s committees and “announced in good time.”

Baerbock’s 2021 candidacy faced a lot of trouble, such as allegations of plagiarism in her book as well as discrepancies in her CV, and saw her Green party drop from a brief period of leading the polls to come out third, behind Olaf Scholz’s SPD and conservative opposition CDU/CSU (EPP).

Habeck, for his part, has lost many of his previously favourable approval ratings, as he is mostly blamed for a green heating law that many critics see as too restrictive.

Currently, the Greens poll is at only 13%, way behind CDU/CSU at 31%, far-right AfD at 17%, and the SPD at 14%.

This puts CDU leader Friedrich Merz in the pole position for the next chancellorship, although his party family only wants to officially decide on the matter after three regional elections in the East German states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September this year.

Leading government party SPD is expected to re-nominate Olaf Scholz after the party’s other hopeful, the much more popular Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, came out in favour of Scholz in June.

Far-right AfD said it would also likely nominate a candidate for chancellor despite the “firewall” that sees all other major parties ruling out joining a government coalition with them. In a recent interview with broadcaster ARD, party co-leader Tino Chrupalla did not want to specify whether he or his co-chief Alice Weidel will take the lead.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]