BRUSSELS — The Greens in the European Parliament will on Tuesday pick new leaders, as the group seeks to reverse its waning influence amid Europe’s rightward shift and launch a comeback in the 2029 EU election. The vote is part of the Parliament’s midterm reshuffle, with a host of top posts up for grabs. The Greens are voting now because Bas Eickhout resigned in May as leader of the group and as an MEP amid revelations of undisclosed relationships with staffers.
Eickhout was not only the face of the Greens in the Parliament, but also one of the best-known MEPs in Brussels and in his native Netherlands. With other group leaders expected to stay in post — or with succession deals already struck — the Green vote is likely to be the reshuffle’s only open leadership race, and as has long been the case, they’ll pick two co-chairs. The candidates are working the phones and going office-to-office to secure the backing of the group’s 53 lawmakers (the Greens are the sixth-largest group in the Parliament).
All four broadly back a shift from pragmatic dealmaking inside the Parliament toward more offensive mobilization, gearing up for a 2029 EU election in which they hope to reverse heavy losses in 2024, and getting lawmakers out of Parliament and onto the streets. POLITICO spoke to all the candidates. The vote takes place on Tuesday, with a press conference scheduled for 6.15 p.m. to announce the winners.
Germany’s Reintke has helped lead the group since 2022 and is widely expected to win one of the two co-chair posts. Reintke says she believes the Greens can exert influence through pragmatic dealmaking, but also wants to take a more assertive approach. The group “is really longing to focus more on external communication … to be more outspoken, to be more with the people, to go more outside of the European Parliament, to be more on the ground,” she said, adding that “this is … a sort of politics that I come from, that I was raised with.” Such a change does not mean removing the Greens from the majority that supports the Commission, Reintke argued.
Despite its rightward shift and rollback of green policies, the group can still secure wins by negotiating, she said, citing as an example the EU’s 2040 climate target, which falls short of Green ambitions but remains in place. On some occasions, however, when the group considers it can’t win anything from a deal, “we are ready to also go into oppositional mode.” That captures the tension shaping the race. Some national delegations within the Greens favor compromise and continued support for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, while others want a tougher stance against her executive, which is dominated by the conservative European People’s Party.
Ștefănuță joined the Greens in 2023 after defecting from the liberals. He ran as an independent in the 2024 EU election, gathering more than 100,000 signatures urging him to stand and 300,000 votes, according to his pitch for the leadership. He has put that grassroots success at the heart of his bid.
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