Jump to content

Green Youth (Germany)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Green Youth
Grüne Jugend
SpokespersonSvenja Appuhn and Katharina Stolla[1]
Founded1994
IdeologyGreen politics
Mother partyAlliance 90/The Greens
International affiliationGlobal Young Greens
European affiliationFederation of Young European Greens (FYEG)
Websitegruene-jugend.de

Green Youth (German: Grüne Jugend, GJ) is the youth organisation linked to the Alliance 90/The Greens (German: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen or Grüne) political party in Germany.

History

[edit]

Green Youth was founded on 16 January 1994, as an independent association with the name Grün-Alternatives Jugendbündnis (abbreviated: GAJB).[citation needed]

Original statutes of the first Grüne Jugend from 1981

Before 1994 there were, after the first attempts in Niedersachsen like Grüne Jugend Braunschweig, founded in the spring of 1981, several state-based associations, such as the Grüne Jugend Hessen, which had been founded in the spring of 1991. It used and still uses a frog as its logo. In the same spring the Grün-Alternative Jugend Baden-Württemberg was founded. Parallel to these state-based organisations was the federal Bundesjugendkontaktstelle (Abbreviated: BUJUKS), a loose network of young members and sympathisers of Die Grünen.

After several years of debate, a federal green youth organisation was founded, in which the state-based organisations and the BUJUKS all merged. In 2001, Green Youth became an integral part of the Die Grünen and lost its independent status.

In 2024 the spokespeople and the entire federal board of ten people steped down and resigned their Alliance 90/The Greens memberships, citing a plan to create a new left-wing youth organization. They said it would not be possible in the long term to be part of a party and want to campaign for fundamentally different policies than those implemented by their own party. They mentioned the special fund for the Bundeswehr, the dispute over forced relocation of the Lützerath brown coal site and the tightening of asylum laws, all of which were supported by the Green Party.[2]

Ideology

[edit]

Although it has similar positions to its mother party, there are some differences. Green Youth for instance is in favour of legalisation of all drugs and the use of free software.[3]

Green Youth at Cologne Pride 2019

Organization

[edit]

Green Youth is a Basisgruppe within Alliance 90/The Greens. It has about 15,000 members.[4] Some of these are members of state-based organisations, while others are direct members of the federal organisation. Membership of the youth organisation currently represents about 15% of the membership of the main party. Membership of the organisation ends in the year one becomes 28-years-old.

The highest organ of the party is the federal congress, in which all members can participate and vote. It elects the board with two speakers, the editors of the party-magazine, SPUNK and the board of arbitration. There is a strict rule that the board, the two speakers and all other elected groups at any level must consist of at least 50% women, inter or trans persons, same as in the mother party. This is to ensure equal treatment. In the months that the federal congress does not meet a federal council, consisting out of two members per state-based organisations, meets. There are also several thematic fora, which work on specific themes (e.g. Europe, Democracy, Drugs, Equal treatment).

Green Youth is a member of the Federation of Young European Greens and Global Young Greens.

Leaders

[edit]
Joint spokespersons over time
Period Spokesperson 1 Spokesperson 2
2017–2019 Ricarda Lang Max Lucks
2019–2021 Anna Peters Georg Kurz
2021–2023 Sarah-Lee Heinrich Timon Dzienus
2023–2025 Svenja Appuhn Katharina Stolla

References

[edit]
  1. ^ https://gruene-jugend.de/wir/bundesvorstand/
  2. ^ Schult, Christoph (2024-09-25). "Bündnis 90/Die Grünen: Vorstand der Grünen Jugend tritt zurück – und verlässt die Partei". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 2024-09-26.
  3. ^ admin (2012-01-02). "jung. grün. stachlig. - Drogenpolitik im Selbstverständnis und den Grundsätzen der GRÜNEN JUGEND". Grüne Drogenpolitik (in German). Retrieved 2023-10-31.
  4. ^ "Geschichte". gruene-jugend.de (in German). Retrieved 24 March 2021.
[edit]