German Greens vote to backtrack on unemployment reforms
NUREMBERG, Germany (AFP) — Germany's Green Party voted for an increase and extension of social security spending Saturday, partly rejecting some of the reforms the party itself approved when in government.
At the party's three-day annual conference in Nuremberg -- which started Friday -- more than half the 800 delegates voted in favour of extending benefits for the long-term unemployed.
The result comes as a relief to the Greens' leadership, stung by a vote at a special assembly called two months ago where grassroots members voted down a leadership motion backing a continued German military presence in Afghanistan.
That upset caused potential coalition parties -- both at federal and regional level -- to reconsider the Green's credibility as partners.
"If we wish our policy to have weight in society, it must be visionary and ambitious, but most of all politically practicable," the party's co-leader Reinhard Butikofer told rank-and-file members.
The Greens hover around nine percent in opinion polls but have suffered from the retirement of their charismatic figurehead Joschka Fischer.
Saturday's motion -- which passed by 432 to 296 votes -- calls for extending the current long-term unemployment benefits given to those in need, including those who have never worked due to ill-health and those too old to enter the labour market.
It would also increase payment levels from a current 347 euros (514 dollars) to 420.
The Green delegates also approved a measure to boost social spending by 60 million euros, with the priority being education.
The Green's decision to revisit the controversial "Hartz IV" employment reforms instigated under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder echoes a recent Social Democratic Party (SPD) conference, which also sought to undo some of the measures.
The two parties ruled Germany in a Red-Green coalition from 1998-2005, during which time the controversial reforms were originally introduced.
A more radical alternative motion, guaranteeing minimum state aid levels regardless of property or income, based on the French model, was rejected -- to the relief of the leadership.
