Heading into a recent meeting of her party's parliamentary group, Green Party co-leader Franziska Brantner almost casually announced a surprise: At a meeting of all 85 federal Greens lawmakers held in Leipzig at the end of April, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had been an invited guest.
"Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is the chairperson of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is working on the question, as are we, of what we can do to prevent society from falling apart at this time," the Greens' other co-leader, Felix Banaszak, told DW. "That also requires a union of the political mainstream."
The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is a think tank that is nominally independent, but closely aligned with the CDU.
CDU, Greens still at odds a year ago
As recently as last year, the Greens and the conservatives were viewed as politically incompatible — at least on the national level.
