The Greens polling ahead of Chancellor Merkel’s conservative CDU is a pivotal moment in German politics – one that could have geo-strategic repercussions. The German Green Party is polling 7 points ahead of the CDU/CSU and 15 points ahead of the SPD. The Christian and Social Democrats have, in various combinations, ruled Germany for generations. A Green-led government will be a shock to the industrial powerhouse of Europe.

Annalena Baerbock’s Greens will tear up the fiscal rule book which has kept Germany on a sound financial basis for generations; the party has pledged to spend €500 billion over the next decade on the “socioecological transformation” of the economy on top of the pandemic’s damage to the nation’s finances. The left-wing agenda includes:

• Cranking up wealth taxes
• A 50% increase in welfare payments
• Doubling carbon taxes
• Banning short-haul flights
• Raising income taxes
• A right to a 30 hour working week and a right to work from home
• Rent caps

One thing they are surprisingly less extreme about is cutting carbon emissions: where Boris is promising to cut Britain’s emissions by an impossible 78%, the German Greens are only aiming for 70%…