Here is an English language summary of the latest discussions from http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,29185,00.html An Alternative Alternative
By David Hudson Young Greens attack Boomer Greens in a paper urging a change of course for the junior coalition partner. Also: The move from Bonn to "Germany's gayest city" has begun.
Forty youngish Green Party functionaries have released a five-page "catalog of demands" blaming the generation that founded the party for its current crisis, reflected most visibly in the Greens' poor showing in the elections for the European Parliament two weeks ago. (See the June 14 "Digest")
Noting that young Germans in particular are abandoning the party, the paper calls on the founders to break the "ritual of the alternative movement." The party's image, say the Forty, suffers from a 1968 hangover and has, in fact, become "a generational party." And that generation, which tends to view big business as "an essential element of some evil empire," is not getting any younger. Further, without naming names, but in a comment clearly aimed at Environmental Minister Jürgen Trittin, the paper urges "leadership personalities" to "get over their vain self-images."
Rezzo Schlauch, leader of the Green faction in parliament welcomed the paper, calling it "completely correct." Environmentalism must remain at the heart of the party, but Schlauch adds, "The Greens are going to have to dump the old ballast it's been carrying around and stand for something new." That new course, according to the paper, would be to "clearly declare battle" on the Liberal party (FDP) and pick up the "broken shards of responsible liberalism."