Germany's Fischer warns of collapse of his Greens

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Germany's Fischer warns of collapse of his Greens

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has warned 
that his ecologist Greens, junior coalition partners to the ruling 
Social Democrats, faced a make-or-break challenge to modernize their 
party and stop internal bickering. 

``The Greens must now not only find themselves but reinvent 
themselves. This process will decide the future of the party,'' the 
mass-circulation Bild daily quoted Fischer as saying in a release 
issued ahead of publication Friday. 

``The problems of the Greens are largely of their own making. The 
party can solve them, but could fail in the process,'' he said before 
a party congress starting Friday aimed at choosing new leaders and 
themes to boost flagging support. 

Brought into federal government in 1998 as partner to Chancellor 
Gerhard Schroeder, the ecologist, pacifist Greens have had a tough 
time of late, losing their place as Germany's third largest party to 
the resurgent liberal Free Democrats. 

The party even turned last week's landmark deal with the energy 
industry to phase out nuclear energy by the mid-2020s into a crisis, 
with senior Greens arguing in public over whether to press for a 
faster withdrawal. 

Some members suggested the party's coalition with the SPD could 
collapse if the three-day congress in the western city of Muenster 
does not back the deal, which proposes a slower phase-out than the 
Greens had wanted. 

Fischer predicted that the Greens would not die and said he expected 
the party congress to reach a sensible decision on nuclear power and 
choose new leaders who would give the party a good chance of winning 
back the third place in German politics. 

Leadership hopeful Renate Kuenast agreed that the party needed an 
overhaul. ``We need a renewal of personnel, content and in our ways 
of working,'' she told the Berlin Tagesspiegel daily. 

``The FDP is trying to compete with us, but we will remain the third 
biggest,'' she said. ``In contrast to the FDP we believe that you 
shouldn't elbow others aside. We want people to be able to develop 
themselves independently, but also show solidarity.'' 

But the German public was less confident for the Greens. An opinion 
poll published Thursday in Die Welt daily showed that while 46 
percent of those asked saw the withdrawal from nuclear power as a 
success for the Greens, 44 percent said they saw no new causes for 
the party to champion in the future. 

The congress is due to elect successors to Roestel and her co-chair, 
Antje Radcke of the party's radical wing, and appoint members of an 
expanded party executive. Radcke had suggested the party could split 
if a majority backs the nuclear deal. 

Favorites for the leadership posts are Kuenast, a 44-year-old Berlin 
lawyer, and the Baden-Wuerttemberg media specialist Fritz Kuhn, also 
44. Both have Fischer's backing. 

Fischer himself, a controversial figure among the ecologists, 
announced Wednesday that he would run for a seat on the party 
council, the first time he has tested his personal popularity with 
his colleagues by seeking party office. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
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