All four broadly back a shift from pragmatic dealmaking inside the Parliament toward more offensive mobilization, gearing up for , 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.
Terry Reintke — the continuity candidate
Germany’s Reintke has helped lead the group since 2022 and is widely expected to win one of the two co-chair posts. “I’m quite optimistic, quite confident,” she said in an interview.
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.