German Greens turn to TikTok for European elections

DPA
·1 min read
Alliance 90/The Greens Managing Director Emily Buening speaks at a press conference. Hannes P Albert/dpa
Alliance 90/The Greens Managing Director Emily Buening speaks at a press conference. Hannes P Albert/dpa

Germany's Greens plan to reach out to younger voters through TikTok in their campaign for the European Parliament elections in June.

The party's top candidate Terry Reintke said the move was aimed at showing how important young and first-time voters were to the party, whose main focus has traditionally been on environmental issues.

While there had been concerns over using the Chinese-owned social media platform for campaigning, the Greens did not want to "leave this space to the far-right," party managing director Emily Büning said.

In the European elections scheduled for June 6-9, Germany's Greens are campaigning under the slogan "Do what counts."

The party's focus would be on the future of the European Union's Green Deal, aimed at making the bloc carbon-neutral by 2050, Reintke, who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2014, said.

Reintke accused conservative and far-right forces of "taking an axe to the Green Deal."

German Greens leader Omid Nouripour said the party would focus on three themes, "peace and security, prosperity and safeguarding the climate, and democracy and freedom."

Opinion polls put the Greens at between 11% and 16%, well short of the 20.5% they secured in the European elections in 2019, their best result to date.

The party also plans to put up posters across Germany with slogans promoting democracy and freedom with the aim of resisting the "massive shift to the right" that they expect to see in the elections.