Greens Avoid Clash On Governing Role

West Germany’s radical Greens party ended its annual conference Sunday by avoiding what might have been a sharp clash over roles for its members in future governments.

The Greens chose instead to rally behind a common front stressing ecological issues, a position they hope will increase their vote in the nation’s next general election in 1987.

In their meeting at the Black Forest city of Offenburg, party members agreed not to hold a formal debate on the volatile issue of whether the Greens should enter state or federal governments in a coalition with the main opposition Social Democratic Party.

Just last week, a leading party member, Joschka Fischer, agreed to take office as environmental minister in the central state of Hesse, in an administration run by the Social Democrats.

The issue of taking office with Social Democratic partners, in a so-called “Red-Green” coalition, is a fractious one for the minority party.

Pragmatic members of the Greens, known as realis for realists, believe the party must ultimately accept the responsibility of sharing government jobs, if the Social Democrats give them the chance. Only this way, they argue, can the Greens be taken seriously by the West German electorate and garner the minimum 5% of the vote needed to gain any seats in federal or state legislatures under the system of proportional representation.

However, hard-line fundamentalists, known as the fundis, believe the party must not join coalitions with any established party lest its image become contaminated. Moreover, fundamentalist Greens abhor the Social Democratic Party because its national leadership has not disavowed nuclear energy and Bonn’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The fundis note caustically that Fischer’s new job in Hesse gives him no control over nuclear energy plants in the state because they are the responsibility of the interior minister.

For their part, some Social Democratic leaders like Johannes Rau, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, have said they would never invite the Greens into a governing coalition because of the radical, disruptive character of the party.

The party’s three-day conference was interrupted Saturday when most of the delegates boarded a caravan of buses to demonstrate near the Bavarian town of Wackersdorf at the site of a new nuclear waste disposal plant.

Some party members had argued against leaving the conference until its major business was completed, but a majority of Greens decided to go. Petra Kelly, one of the party’s best-known members, declared, “People in Wackersdorf want a decision in their favor, not just a shuffling of papers.”

Recent public opinion polls have shown the Greens favored with only about 6% of the vote, compared to a high showing of 11% a year ago.

Party leaders are bitterly divided as to whether the West German voters would like to see the Greens more radicalized and less Establishment-oriented or would prefer that they become more responsible by offering to take part in federal and local governments.

Resolutions adopted Sunday called for the reform of the mass media, an end to genetic experiments and support of a permanent demonstration at the Wackersdorf nuclear facility.