German business sees new ally in resurgent Greens

BERLIN: Germany's resurgent Green party is setting records in the opinion polls and being tentatively courted by unlikely new suitors: industry types who long saw the environmentalists as adversaries.

Particularly smaller, often family-owned, businesses -- the backbone of the Europe's biggest economy -- are being drawn in by the opposition Greens' programme of pragmatic sustainability.

"The Greens and small- and medium-sized businesses -- it is a match practically made in heaven," said Mario Ohoven, president of the BVMW industry group representing the interests of such firms.

A recent survey by the Handelsblatt business daily among 800 industry executives on which parties best catered to their needs put the Greens at the top of the class for the first time with a "satisfactory" grade.

The Greens were born out of the often radical ecologist movement of the 1970s and regularly alienated industry with their uncompromising views on emissions, nuclear power and energy efficiency.

But after 30 years of practical experience as a party, including their 1998-2005 stint as junior partner in the federal government, the Greens have grown more pragmatic while the pinstriped crowd has perhaps grown more green.

The common ground now includes traditionally conservative fiscal policies, concern for conservation of natural resources, deep suspicion of the power of big electric companies and calls for tighter regulation of financial markets. German business sees new ally in resurgent Greens