LAST week I caught up with Cem Özdemir, lead candidate of Germany's Green Party, to talk about his country’s future. The latest polls put his party at about 8%. Mr Özdemir’s perspective matters, for two reasons.

First, the polls suggest that Angela Merkel may have to choose between another “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats (SPD)—who are fed up with governing with her—and a three-way coalition with the centre-left Greens and the right-liberal Free Democrats (FDP). In the latter scenario (called “Jamaica” as the colours of the parties match those of country’s flag) Mr Özdemir might well become Germany’s foreign minister. That would make him the second Green to hold that job after Joschka Fischer and the first Turkish-German to hold any major government rank (his father moved to Germany from Tokat, north-east of Ankara).

Second, Mr Özdemir is actually willing to discuss the big challenges facing Germany. Whether or not you agree with him, this is welcome in an election campaign marked and marred by the big parties’ inability to talk what Germans call Klartext, or frank sense, about the big issues. How should the Euro zone advance? What are Germany’s international responsibilities? How can the country’s business model be made fit for the future? How can the country’s car industry get out of its crisis? All these questions are left frustratingly unanswered by Mrs Merkel and the SPD. And all are questions to which Mr Özdemir, to his credit, gave me frank answers.

We sat down together in the Green Party’s office in Karlsruhe, near the German-French border. The location was symbolically important. It was here that the party was founded in 1980. Today it is grappling with a very different country, Europe and world. In particular it is grappling with the possibility of a Jamaica coalition. Mr Özdemir made it clear that very much separates his party from the FDP.

What follows is a lightly edited translation of our discussion.

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The Economist: Given the background—four years of grand coalition, storms, floods, Trump—shouldn’t the Greens be doing a bit better? You were on just 6% in a recent INSA poll.

Cem Özdemir: More reliable polls have us on 8%, though I hope we get more. If we had conducted this discussion a few months ago your German colleagues would have all said: “The Greens are bothering us all with environmental themes. They talk about the shift from industrial agriculture to sustainable farming, the energy transition to renewables and the future of mobility. No one’s interested in that.” Take the climate issue. The withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement announced by Donald Trump, and especially the once-in-a-century storm catastrophes are forcing the issue onto the agenda. How many once-in-a-century disasters are there now every century? We’re now talking about once-in-a-millenium catastrophes.

Do you think people are recognising the Greens’ strengths in these areas?

Absolutely. We promote issues like clean air in towns and cities, climate protection and the mutual relationship between jobs and these necessary measures. Others talk as if you have to choose between one and another: I say, forward-looking policies like climate protection are a precondition for economic growth.

How are voters responding to these arguments?

More and more people are coming along to our campaign events. We’re helped by the fact that people are no longer talking about who will come first. After the TV debate (or perhaps we should call it a “duet”) between Merkel and Schulz it looks like the race for the chancellery may already be decided. Now the question is: with whom will the CDU govern? Another Grand Coalition would be a standstill and with the FDP Germany would take a step into the past. We fight for a progressive agenda.

On carbon dioxide emissions, for example, the FDP wants to relax the limits. That would reward the lazy and the deceitful. We stand on the side of German engineers, of the hard-working so-called Mittelständler who can rise to the challenge. They are not less innovative or clever than Chinese and Americans. They just have Alexander Dobrindt [CSU] as transport minister. Or take another example: the whole world agrees that these wild weather events are connected with the climate crisis, but some people question that. The general secretary of the FDP, Nicola Beer, is following in Donald Trump’s footsteps calling this connection “fake news”. People need to know that. Those who want Donald Trump’s policies in Germany and climate crisis sceptics in the next government can vote for the FDP. But those who want a pro-tech politics of economy-and-environment, not economy-or-environment need to vote for us. Now Germany must decide: a neoliberal agenda with the FDP or a progressive agenda with the Greens.

But the decision is also about what sort of coalition will govern Germany and according to most polls it will be a choice between another grand coalition and a “Jamaica” coalition.

A grand coalition is always possible. And Jamaica will certainly be arithmetically possible. But I’ve already mentioned the policy differences. And let’s not kid ourselves: the numbers are not far off making a two-party coalition possible. I think many of those talking about Jamaica are paving the way for black-yellow and hope that they can calm some of the concerns about the FDP under the motto “there will always be the greens as a corrective so it doesn’t get too crazy”. But I trying to imagine that. We have many differences with the CDU/CSU. You may have seen me on that TV debate with Wolfgang Schäuble…

Did anything about that encounter surprise you?

Many in Germany, including some journalists at times, don’t realise: you can in fact have a fair and reasonable debate but also have clear disagreements. I’m a fan of tough arguments while treating one’s opponent with respect and decency. But to return to your question, with Mr Schäuble I wasn’t debating whether the manmade climate crisis exists or not, but about how to deal with it and how quickly. Likewise on nitrogen oxide. I didn’t have to convince Mr Schäuble that people have a right to breath clean air in urban spaces.

And with the FDP?

With the FDP my argument is about the goal itself, not the best way to achieve it. That’s a massive difference.

So you’re saying there would be bigger problems with the FDP in a Jamaica coalition than with the CDU/CSU?

Absolutely. We disagree with the FDP on the fundamentals, like should we have a values-based foreign policy or not? Should the European consensus on Russia policy stand? I won’t support that. With me there will be no adventurism, no political alchemy with our foreign policy. Germany is too important for that. Too many in the world are watching us. That’s true of how we tackle the climate crisis too, especially in a situation where America’s federal leadership is stepping back. Everyone said: Trump will never win the nomination, he will never beat Hillary Clinton. They were wrong. So I’m wary of predicting that we’ll soon be rid of him. Perhaps he will be there for some time. Germany has to step up and take responsibility: we are the country that must show that you can combine growth, prosperity, jobs and the fight against climate crisis.

So there would be many difficulties with the FDP.

It’s like cat and dog, like a SUV and an electric car. But I would add: I know the FDP in Rhineland Palatinate, who govern very successfully with us. I see the FDP in Schleswig-Holstein, which is also governing successfully with us.

What has the FDP in these states done right?

In Schleswig Holstein the FDP has a different tradition. It was quick to oppose nuclear energy. In Rhineland Palatinate there is a social-liberal tradition. But the federal FDP under Christian Lindner is the North-Rhine-Westphalian FDP, which opposes wind turbines and supports coal-fired power stations. Those power stations he is trying to sell us are an insult to every German engineer. They have an efficiency of only 30%. That’s not the 21st century. That’s not high tech. It’s back to the past. You have to realise that behind the modern FDP facade—all the talk of digitalisation and the cool posters—is the old party of lobby interests, without a moral compass. We represent a modern Germany. So the important question is: does the CDU/CSU in such a coalition move to the right, where Christian Lindner stands, or to a “Germany where we live well and gladly” as the CDU poster says?Nice poster, but what about my children or my grandchildren? What about the children of Europe and the rest of the world? We stand for a politics for our grandchildren everywhere. That’s the difference.

I come from Stuttgart. Uwe Hück, the chairman of the works council at Porsche, is a friend. Mr Zetsche [head of Daimler]. was at our party conference last fall. I talk to the leadership of our big industrial players. Instead of saying “You’re doing great, keep doing the same” like the FDP does, I tell them clearly “I don’t want you to go the same way as Nokia.” I don’t want the last car made in Germany to end up in a museum. I want Germany to remain a centre of car production. In the future that will only be possible with emissions-free cars, interconnected and affordable.

What does the car industry make of your proposals, like on the internal combustion engine?

It is how it always is when the Greens say something. New cars need to be emissions-free vehicles by 2030. After we proposed that in our election programme many said “the Greens are crazy”, like they did when we started to fight against nuclear energy. But then comes the stage where they say: “They’re not totally crazy, but we can’t do it like that, and not that fast.” The next phase is that more and more people agree. The final phase: it happens. We’re in the phase where more and more people are switching over to our side, including the chancellor. She says the internal combustion motor must come to an end, but doesn’t name a date. That’s why the Greens are necessary. We are the innovative force in German politics. Internationally, we are not alone: Britain’s date is 2040, France's 2040, in parts of Norway it is 2025.

In October the Chinese Communist Party will agree on strict quotas for electric vehicles at its conference. For the Chinese this is not a “soft” issue, it’s a hard economic one. It is up to us in Germany to do it either like the grand coalition and go to Xi Jinping and try to say: “please, please, please give us a few more years!”. Or we can roll up our sleeves and say: “we’re going to make sustainable cars for the world market now”. No one [in the car industry] tells me “2030 is easy to achieve.” But they all say: “we need a fixed framework so we can plan our investments properly.”

Is the relationship between politics and the car industry in Germany too close?

I can answer your question in one line: politics is not the servant of industry but creates the framework, and sometimes it must push it forward. I do an internship every year, spending two or three days in a company. From the skilled trades through the Mittelstand to big industries, I work alongside the workers and management and watch how they tick. The most important thing I’ve learned is that we can’t tackle the big questions about the future of German industry in four-year cycles. That’s why I’m proposing a Future Commission for environmentally friendly mobility, bringing together the parties, the industry, the suppliers, the employees, scientists, environmental organizations and consumers. And as a good democrat I know we Greens won’t get everything we want, we will have to make compromises as everybody else. But in the end there would be a result where everyone knows: that’s where Germany’s going, now we get on with it.

Turning to foreign policy, Sigmar Gabriel has said sanctions on Russia should be lifted if there is a ceasefire in Ukraine. What do you think of that?

The ink on the Minsk Agreement is barely dry. I struggle to see where Russia has conformed to this agreement. Have they withdrawn their heavy weaponry? Have there been fair local elections in eastern Ukraine? Nothing has been kept! And we are meant to lift the sanctions in response? Christian Lindner from the FDP says we should talk with Putin. Who is denying him dialogue? Germany? I’m a firm critic of Angela Merkel, including on foreign policy issues like Turkey. But in all fairness to her, Lindner’s claim we are denying Putin dialogue sounds like that Russia Today propaganda. Neither Brussels, nor Berlin, nor London, nor Paris is denying him a dialogue. To say otherwise is to spread Putin's propaganda. Why is Lindner saying that? Because he wants to draw on anti-Western resentments in German society.

Do you think he believes it?

No. He’s doing it out of pure strategic reasons, because he wants to fish to the right of the CDU/CSU. I’m sure many in the FDP are unhappy about it. Alexander Graf Lambsdorff from the FDP is a very good friend of mine. We worked excellently together in the European Parliament. I know his stance on Russia and the Baltic states. He must be privately furious.

Imagine you’re Ukrainian. You stood up for European values on Maidan Square. In the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 your country got rid of its nuclear weapons in return for a guarantee of its territorial integrity. And now Russia splits off Crimea and along comes Lindner and says “we’ll have to live with it”.

What did Mrs Merkel do wrong on Turkey?

To answer that question properly I’d need to know what the Turkey strategy of Mrs Merkel and the grand coalition even is. When Turkey was on the right course they spoke just of “privileged partnership” and when it started to move away from Europe the talk was again about EU membership. I don’t understand the principle.

How would the relationship with Turkey change with a Green in the foreign ministry?

No reasonable person can think that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey can ever become a member of the EU. The membership talks are right at the back of the freezer. Leave them there. To make it clear: our stance is not against Turkey or the Turks, but against Erdogan. What would we do differently? We would not just re-examine the suspension of the Hermes export credit guarantees [covering business with Turkey], we would really do it. When Sigmar Gabriel even suggested he might do this, Turkey responded with this absurd “terror list” including Daimler, Siemens and even a doner kebab snack bar! Then they blamed “overzealous officials”, as if officials in Turkey can do anything without Erdogan’s permission. So you see: the only language that Erdogan understands is the language of money and the development of the economy. We must be prepared to speak it. I can speak it, I can even do it in Turkish. And I would go a step further. In Turkey the German company Rheinmetall is involved in the construction of a tank factory. If we suspend this cooperation that would be the language that Erdogan understands…

Let’s talk about France and the Euro zone. After the election Mr Macron will propose common investments worth several percent of GDP, a finance minister, eventually a Euro zone parliament. Where would the Greens stand on this in government?

First we have to answer the fundamental question: is it in our interests for President Macron to be successful, or do we not care? We celebrate his electoral win, but we should be alarmed. If you add together Le Pen, Mélenchon, the Trotskyists and the other loonies in the first round it was 45%. We, we Europeans, won narrowly at both the Austrian and the French presidential elections. Every narrow win brings us closer to defeat. At some point it will go wrong. If Macron fails, who will come next? Perhaps Marine Le Pen. It is bad enough that Britain wants to turn its back on us. That will be hard, demanding and painful (I fear more in Britain than here) but we will survive it. We would not survive something like that in France. Without France there is no EU. So Germany’s first priority must be to cease any sort of populism towards France and to make sure we are successful together.

What does that mean in practice?

We must take President Macron’s outstretched hand on the subject of carbon taxes for example. Renewables don’t have to pay and fossil fuels such as the climate-harming coal or oil have to pay the real price they produce by harming the environment. That would be fair. Or take nuclear energy. In Nicolas Hulot President Macron has a cabinet member who wants to reduce the proportion of nuclear energy from 75% to 50%. Let’s help them do that. That cannot be all but it would be a start.

But in Germany that’s not the controversial issue.

Mr Macron has also said let’s make sure there are two votes at European elections: one for national representatives and the other for a European party list. It’s a Green proposal! I would support that immediately. In terms of institutional reform, we need to ask: what reforms? I am personally no fan of making complicated structures yet more complicated. I don’t know if we can realistically make a Eurogroup parliament happen in the foreseeable future.

Because of German politics?

Because we’d need majorities for it in Europe. I would not make it an exclusive club. But I agree with the fundamental idea in the Lisbon Treaty that single countries can go ahead, with the possibility that others follow them. We can’t travel at the speed of the slowest in Europe. So in certain areas we need to advance but make sure—and here Germany has a special responsibility—that there is not an east-west divide. Alongside the French-German axis I also want to strengthen the Weimar Triangle. That is difficult at the moment with the Polish government…

Is it even possible, with PiS in power?

We cannot give up trying. It’s getting harder, with the latest demands from the Polish government. But we can’t give up trying. We can’t let a new iron curtain split Europe between those that want to go further and those in the periphery. But otherwise I’m very open to the proposals from France.

The Euro finance minister, the investments…?

We need to look at it all. But the key thing is that we cannot separate political union from a union that invests in sustainable growth. We need both. The investment part is a problem for the current German Government. The idea that beyond the presidential republic of France there is a Europe with real powers is not easy for France. If you compare the role of the French assemblée nationale with that of the German Bundestag you will understand what I mean. But without the political dimension it won’t work. No German party will agree to open the money taps and invest if those who are making the decisions are not politically legitimated.

By the way, I don’t think German exports are too strong. I’m from Baden-Württemberg, so you will never hear me saying that! But we invest too little at home. You know the numbers of dilapidated bridges, broadband internet does not suit the needs of our Mittelstand all across the country. We need to invest in our education system, in schools, universities, day care etc. I want to change this in the next term.

Are you fundamentally against Eurobonds? Not for existing debts but to finance new investments?

The German Council of Economic Experts made a smart suggestion, which was a moderated version of the general Eurobonds idea. But it will only work if President Macron asks for Eurobonds. He has not done so yet. So it is still a mock discussion. But I would not hide from such a debate. I just want to make one thing clear. The modernisation of the Mezzogiorno is not a task for Germany. Italy itself must do that. The question of establishing a proper tax administration in Greece is also not a task for Germany. Greece must do that. I don’t want to release these countries from their responsibilities. We need both, a willingness to reform and a willingness to support.

Do you think Mr Macron’s speech in Athens got that balance right?

Every German should jump for joy that we have a French president with such an affinity for Germany. His whole cabinet has an affinity for Germany. They are talking about reforms in France that were previously completely unimaginable. All those who said: before we talk about investment we have to talk about reform. There’s your man! Whom are we waiting for? Who else is going to come along? He wants to implement hard reforms, a sort of Agenda 2010. So we can either commentate from the sidelines or we can help out. I’m for helping out.