Grüne on the economy

The Greens want the German economy to grow in a climate-neutral, sustainable and innovative way while staying competitive. Businesses are to get simpler rules along with reliable goals.

The Greens want an economy that protects the climate. The economy should still grow. Companies should get simpler rules. The goals set by politics should stay reliable.

The platform calls on policymakers to stay the course, provide reliability, and simplify rules and standards. Businesses are to get room for uncomplicated, pragmatic solutions. The platform treats protecting the climate and ecosystems as a precondition for security, freedom and prosperity, and wants planetary boundaries respected. It also wants to fix structural weaknesses of Germany as a business location and support companies on the path to climate neutrality.

The Greens want to cut red tape, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. The so-called Praxischeck (practice check) would be extended to all sectors, and rules would be reviewed regularly. Social and environmental protection standards are to stay in place.

The Greens want less red tape for companies. Red tape means many forms and complicated rules. Experts and affected people would look for needless rules together. Protection for people and nature would stay.

In a Praxischeck, businesses, public agencies and civil society go through one sector at a time looking for unnecessary hurdles and for fixes. This method would be applied across the board and used in advance when new laws are drafted. Key government services for businesses would be bundled in one place, and data would only have to be submitted once. Notarization requirements would be simplified and reduced. The thresholds that define a small or medium-sized business would rise moderately.

The Greens want to give companies that invest in Germany a bonus worth ten percent of the investment for five years. It would apply to all firms and all investments except buildings. The aim is to ease the tax burden on private investment.

Companies would get money when they invest in Germany. They get ten percent of the sum back. This would last five years. It does not apply to buildings.

The bonus is deducted from the tax the company owes. If the bonus is larger than that tax, the firm is paid the difference. Whether the bonus works would be checked every year. The platform points out that most investment comes from companies and other private players.

The Greens want to make it easier for young companies to get private capital and to simplify founding a business. In the platform's view, financing is a major weakness compared with the US and China. Germany and Europe are said to need a new startup culture.

The Greens want to help young companies. These companies should get money from investors more easily. Starting a company should become simpler and digital. Founders would get advice in one place.

The WIN initiative for venture capital would continue and improve tax, legal and financial conditions for young innovative firms. Insurers, pension funds and private individuals would find it easier to invest in startups and scale-ups where the risk is acceptable. Startups would be better able to reinvest in their own business. Founding procedures would be legally simplified, digitized and automated. One-stop shops would advise and support founders.

The Greens want to make it easier to found companies, especially out of academia. Researchers would be able to take unpaid leave to start a business, and employees would more easily get a share in their company's success.

The Greens want to help new companies. Researchers can take a break from their job to start a company. They get no pay during that time. Workers should get shares in their company more easily.

Start-ups would get better financing options. Spin-offs and the transfer of intellectual property from universities would be advanced through the Startup Factories. EXIST funding would be broadened, including EXIST-Women and formats for groups that rarely found companies so far. Universities and non-university research institutes would get a stronger mandate for knowledge transfer. Employee share ownership would be expanded.

The Greens want more support for research, development and production in key technologies so that Germany catches up with the leading countries. In the program's view, future prosperity depends on this.

The Greens want to support important new technology. This includes AI, microchips and batteries. Germany should be among the best countries here. This should secure good jobs.

The program names AI, quantum technology, microchips, cloud computing, climate-neutral energy solutions, biotechnology and robotics, with a special focus on European firms. Factories for microchips and batteries would continue to be built up. Space would get more investment and independent European access to orbit. The EU's Net-Zero Industry Act would be implemented quickly and fully in Germany. Nuclear fusion would be researched further, even though the program says it will likely not contribute to climate targets by 2045.

The Greens want to improve conditions for skilled trades, small businesses and solo self-employed people. The Meisterbrief (master craftsman certificate) would become free, and the self-employed would get clearer rules and better social protection.

The Greens want to help the skilled trades. The master craftsman certificate should cost nothing. Trainees should get a minimum wage in each sector. People who work alone for themselves should be better protected.

The plan includes less red tape, help with business succession and support for training in the trades. Sector-specific minimum pay and more equal standing of vocational and academic education are meant to make these jobs more attractive. Pregnancy would be financially covered for tradeswomen and the self-employed as well. Self-employment would be redefined using positive criteria so that the procedure to determine employment status is legally certain. Social security for the solo self-employed would be strengthened.

The Greens want to develop competition law further to better protect small and mid-sized companies and consumers from monopolies. Large platforms should not be able to extend their market power into further lines of business.

The Greens want stricter rules for very large companies. Big internet platforms should not become even more powerful. Small companies and customers should be better protected. Platforms should be responsible for their products like a shop.

The Federal Cartel Office and the EU Commission are at the center and, in the party's view, should also act against excessive profits in crises. At EU level, the New Competition Tool would be revived. Small takeovers and mergers, by contrast, would face less procedural burden. The party supports the Digital Fairness Act and demands product responsibility from large online retailers. Manipulative practices online would be pushed back.

The Greens want a comprehensive overhaul of the rules for public contracts. Sustainable procurement would become simpler and the norm, while municipalities and companies would face less administrative effort.

The state buys many things and awards contracts. The Greens want to make the rules for this simpler. The state should usually buy in an eco-friendly way. Small companies should still get contracts easily.

According to the program, this could save administrative costs of more than one billion euros. Regional origin and the resilience of the European economy would be allowed as criteria. Contracts would still normally be split into lots so that small and mid-sized firms can bid directly. The value thresholds for direct awards would rise considerably. Procurement offices would get tools for sustainable awards, and start-ups would be considered more.

The Greens want to create a new legal form for companies whose assets stay locked in the business. It is meant to give family firms and start-ups another succession option; in addition, public-benefit companies would get more support.

The Greens want to allow a new kind of company. Its money stays in the company. This should help when a company needs new owners. Companies that serve the common good should get more support.

Public-benefit companies would receive the same start-up funding as others. Money in dormant accounts, meaning accounts whose owners cannot be found, would go to social innovation and such companies. The National Strategy for Social Innovations and Public-Benefit Companies would continue.

The Greens want to expand the joint federal-state program for regional economic development so that rural areas also stay economically strong. They want to accompany structural change in the coal regions with investment and involve local people.

The Greens want more support for weaker regions. There should be good jobs in rural areas too. Coal regions should get new roads, rail, research and companies. People there should have a say.

For Lusatia and the Central German and Rhenish coal regions, the program names new infrastructure, science locations, business support, nature restoration and investment in future technologies. Decisions are to be made transparently and take up ideas from the region. The National Tourism Strategy would be developed further, aiming at more sustainable and socially fairer tourism. The broader measurement of prosperity in the annual economic report, which also covers environmental and social factors, would be expanded.

The Greens want new trade partnerships to open markets and reduce dependencies. Agreements should, however, contain enforceable social and environmental standards, which in the party's view protect against a race to the bottom.

The Greens want more trade with many countries. This way Germany depends less on single countries. The agreements should contain firm rules. The rules protect workers, the climate and nature.

The precautionary principle, the Paris Agreement, the core ILO labor conventions and the Convention on Biological Diversity would be anchored in agreements. What the party sees as abusive use of arbitration tribunals would end, and investment protection would apply only to direct expropriation and discrimination. Agreements for individual sectors and goods are meant to bring quick results. Trade balance imbalances would be reduced step by step.

The Greens want to transpose the EU supply chain directive into German law with little bureaucracy. In the party's view, it ensures that products sold in Europe are made without exploitation and child labor.

The EU has passed rules for supply chains. Companies must check how their goods are made. There should be no child labor and no exploitation. The Greens want to put these rules into practice in Germany in a simple way.

The program calls the directive a major achievement and commits to both the European and the German supply chain law. The European economy is thereby meant to take responsibility worldwide. Foreign trade promotion would also have to align with the Paris Agreement.

The Greens want to protect European industry against what they see as unfair trade practices. This includes countervailing duties, a more effective carbon border adjustment, stricter customs rules for online retailers and protection of key sectors from takeovers.

The Greens want to protect companies in Europe from unfair trade. Some foreign goods should face tariffs, for example steel. Online sellers like Temu should not be able to get around customs. Important sectors should be protected from buyouts.

The party backs the EU Commission in its talks with China on dumping of electric cars. Loopholes in customs law would be closed, and persistent import of illegal products punished under the EU Digital Services Act. The carbon border adjustment CBAM would cover more products, include the producer's total emissions and use default values. A new investment screening law would protect sectors such as energy and telecommunications. Purchase subsidies, for example for electric cars, would apply only to products made mostly in Europe.