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Germany: the Greens want to lower the voting age to 14


At the age of 14 you can go to the cinema until 10 p.m., decide on a religion, change your name. If it comes to Berlin's Green Party leader Nina Stahr (38), young people from this age should be able to vote in the federal election.

"I'm very happy about voting age of 14", the politician cheered on Twitter after the federal party conference of the Greens at the weekend. In their basic program, however, the Greens only advocated a “significant lowering” of the nationwide voting age from the current 18 years - without a specific number.

"So far, we have always spoken of 16 years - I think it was chosen arbitrarily and at best a derivation of the current municipal voting age in the districts," says Stahr. “14 would be much clearer. Anyone who crashes a car at the age of 14 will be held accountable. So it is definitely to be seen as an age at which you decide about your own life and take it into your own hands. "

Stahr, mother of three children (1, 3, 6), is an English and history teacher, taught high school and secondary school students. She annoys her when it is argued: At a young age, kids are far too easily influenced. The Greens boss: “14-year-olds are often very, very reflective. And that always depends on your own reality of life, your access to information and whether you have learned to classify it. "

Baden-Württemberg's Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (72), on the other hand, has spoken out in favor of 16 as the appropriate age. In view of a society with a high proportion of elderly people, the group of eligible voters should also be expanded downwards.

Such downward corrections have often been made: 150 years ago, men over 25 voted, in 1919 women were allowed to vote, and then over 20 years. After the Second World War, it went up again to 21 years, in 1970 it was reduced to 18 years - and has been in effect in both the Bundestag and Berlin elections ever since.

In a under-18 election project, the Greens in the capital came to 30.9 percent last year. The SPD, Left and CDU followed at a great distance. The climate strike in schools has given the Greens a further boost. These are voices that the party would naturally like to profit from.

However, the Greens of Generation Greta do not trust everything - they have an age limit of at least 16 when it comes to energy drinks.

So that means: You could decide on the composition of the next parliament, but not on the next lemonade.

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