PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
togrant a licence to export arms to Nepal, and Isabelle Durant (Ecolo) after
her position on night flights from Brussels airport was publicly overruled
bythePrime Minister (Hooghe and Rihoux 2003 ). By contrast, the Finnish
Green League, after seven years in government, was widely regarded to have
behaved honourably and responsibly in resigning from the government over
the plantobuildanewnuclear reactor.
Overall, the policy impact of the Greens has been quite modest, although
they can boast a number of concrete achievements. Crucially, for their
longer-term development, they have demonstrated that they are a serious
political force and trustworthy coalition partners. The experience of gov-
ernment provided some important lessons too. When entering coalitions,
Green ministers need coherent, deliverable policy goals so that they can
demonstrate tangible achievements to their supporters. They also need
good advisors; Green ministers often confronted unhelpful bureaucracies
staffed by civil servants who were either ideologically unsympathetic or
simply unused to the informal ways of working that the Greens brought to
office. When the opportunity to enter government arises again, green parties
should be much better prepared to cope with the challenges of office.
The ideological principles and policies of the Greens have been moder-
ated and altered by the pragmatism required of power-sharing. The German
Greens agreed a new ‘Basic Programme’ at their 2002 party conference,
which stated explicitly that ‘we are no longer the ‘‘anti-party party” but
represent an alternative in the party system. The decisive difference for us
wasthat, in order to stay successful, we wanted and needed to develop into
aparty of reform’ (B ̈undnis 90/Die Grunen ̈ 2002 :16). This substantial doc-
ument presents the Greens as a party of comprehensive societal reform:
‘Ecological restructuring, social justice and democratic renewal remain key
objectives, while reference to anti-capitalist, ecocentric or anti-modernist
tenetshas disappeared’ (Bl ̈uhdorn and Szarka 2004 :315). The Greens now
seek to reform the political, economic and social institutions from within,
rather than outside, the system. For example, Green enthusiasm for using
eco-taxation and other incentives to encourage industry to adopt cleaner,
less resource-intensive technologies, reflects an acceptance of the discourse
of ecological modernisation (see Chapter8)andawillingness to engage con-
structively with capitalist institutions and the market. Indeed, in Germany,
where there has long been gridlock over the need to reform an increas-
ingly unsustainable corporatist welfare state, the Greens were more willing
tocountenance neo-liberal reforms than their SPD coalition partner, which
wasconstrained by its strong links to the trade unions. The new programme
represents a strategic repositioning by the Greens that seeks to reconcile a
range of elements within the party: the willingness to embrace certain neo-
liberal economic measures marks a clear shift towards the political centre,
but the commitment to a state-centred social justice system and a range of
libertarian reforms demonstrates the persistence of left-libertarian princi-
ples. No longer outsiders, in those countries where they have held power,