Berlin

The Greens in Berlin

A short timeline of the Green Party in Berlin.

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  • 1978 The Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz (AL), an unruly alliance of environmentalists, feminists, anarchists, commu- nists and nuclear power opponents is founded in Kreuzberg.
  • 1980 The national Green party is founded separately in Karlsruhe, West Germany.
  • 1989 The AL wins 11.8 percent of the West Berlin vote and becomes the junior partner in a coalition government with the SPD.
  • 1990 Reunification precipitates a new election, but the AL leaves the governing coalition to protest the clearing of squats in Friedrichshain by the SPD. They join a new alliance with East German Bündnis 90 (Alliance 90).
  • 1993 The AL is renamed ‘Bündnis 90/Die Grünen’ and becomes part of the national party.
  • 1998 Bündnis 90/Die Grünen wins 6.7 percent of the federal vote, and enters the governing coalition with the SPD under Gerhard Schröder. Joschka Fischer becomes Germany’s first Green vice-chancellor and foreign minister. Künast is appointed minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection in Schröder’s second government (2001-2005).
  • 2001 Newly elected mayor Klaus Wowereit forms a minority government with Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen. But after new elections in October, Wowereit forms a ‘red-red’ state government with the leftist PDS (precursor to Die Linke).
  • 2006 The Green party wins 13.1 percent of the vote in Berlin, but Wowereit opts to continue governing with the Left party.
  • 2011 Renate Künast heads the Greens’ list in the September 18 city-state elections.