The Blue-ing of the Green Party

The Greens have historically been associated with the left, allied with the moderate and far left on the local, national and European level. But according to this article from PressEurop, that could be changing. In both Brussels and Germany, the Greens have now agreed to cooperate with the liberals and Christian Democrats. This, in particular, caught my eye:

Elsewhere, Belgian ecologist party MEP Philippe Lamberts argues thatGreens share certain values with the right. “Socialists and free-marketliberals believe that the measure of quality of life is your materialstatus,” he says. “We think, as Christian Democrats do, that the goodlife is not the amount of money on your bank account.”

This seems intuitively right to me, at least from the perspective of the Green political leadership, especially given the fact that the center right in Europe is increasingly appropriating the theme of a humane (i.e., regulated) capitalism. But I imagine it will take quite a bit of “re-education” before the Green rank-and-file comes to grips with that kind of shift.

Something to keep an eye on, in any case.

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