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Влияние экологического фактора на трансформацию основных политических партий Германии
This article is devoted to the influence of the ever-increasing importance of measures to protect the environment and combat climate change in the political course of the European Union and Germany on the transformation of the main German national political parties (the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, the Social Democratic Party, the Alliance 90/The Greens, the Free Democratic Party, the Alternative for Germany and the Left). According to the opinion polls in Germany, the environmental issues (the protection of the environment, the fight against climate change, and the energy transition) before the 2021 Bundestag elections were causing citizens' concern even more than the coronavirus pandemic. A similar environmental trend was observed before the 2019 European elections when climate change also came to the fore. As a result, the significant growth of the Alliance 90/The Greens in 2019 triggered the other German parties to think of the substantial environmental transformation of their political courses. The reason for it was the need both to preserve the current political influence in parliaments and to expand it further. This article aims to characterize the environmental evolution of the discourses, priorities, and influences of the main parties in Germany. For this aim, the author used the programmes and manifestos of the parties, opinion polls, statistics of election results, speeches of party leaders, etc. Based on the result of the research, the author concludes a significant shift in priorities and deepening of the environmental agenda of all the mentioned parties with an emphasis on climate change. It is also possible to trace that the competition on the proposed climate change targets reaches populist trends in some cases (e.g., in the cases of the Alternative for Germany and the Left). However, the opinion polls and other statistics show that the popularity of parties depends not only on the most important political topics such as the protection of the environment and the fight against climate change (i.e., the environmental factor) but also on other factors, where the reputation of party leaders, as well as historically formed traditional preferences of citizens, are crucial. In particular, it was reflected in the downgrade of the Alliance 90/The Greens, which reached the highest popularity in the 2021 spring. The party achieved record results in the Bundestag elections in September of 2021, but it could not claim the victory.