Meet Robert Habeck, the Green Party’s leader in Germany, who is making waves with his pragmatic approach to politics and commitment to environmental causes. As a seasoned politician, he has navigated various roles, including vice-chancellor and economy minister, while facing challenges such as securing energy imports and phasing out oil and gas heating systems.
Robert Habeck, the top candidate of the German Green Party, is one of the country’s most recognizable politicians. He has been at the forefront of his party’s election campaign, with his face featured on all campaign posters and regular appearances on talk shows and social media channels.
Robert Habeck is a German politician and environmentalist who has been serving as the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in Germany since December 2021.
He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens party and has been involved in various environmental and climate-related initiatives throughout his career.
Prior to his ministerial role, Habeck served as the co-leader of the Green Party from 2018 to 2022.
A Career in Politics
Habeck joined the environmentalist Green Party in 2002, when he was in his early 30s. Initially, he studied philosophy, German language and literature, and philology before earning a master’s degree in 1996 and being awarded his doctorate in 2000. He also spent a year at Denmark‘s Roskilde University , where he acquired fluent Danish.
Before entering politics, Habeck worked as a writer, co-authoring detective stories and children’s books with his wife, Andrea Paluch. Together with their four sons, they live in Flensburg, the northernmost city in Germany, which lies just 10 kilometers from the border with Denmark.
A Pragmatic Leader
Habeck’s political career gained momentum in 2012 when he was appointed as Schleswig-Holstein‘s environment minister. During his six-year tenure, he built a reputation as an easygoing and pragmatic Green politician who worked closely with his coalition partners, including the Social Democrats (SPD) and conservatives.
Robert Habeck is a German politician and environmentalist, serving as the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action since 2021.
Born in 1972, he joined the Green Party in 1993.
Habeck has held various positions within the party, including parliamentary group leader.
He was previously the Minister-President of Schleswig-Holstein from 2018 to 2021.
Habeck is known for his advocacy on climate change and renewable energy.
As ‘windy state‘ Schleswig-Holstein is suited for wind power, Habeck set out to win people over to install giant wind turbines. His efforts paid off, as the amount of wind energy generated in Schleswig-Holstein nearly doubled between 2012 and 2016.
Wind power is a renewable energy source generated from the wind's kinetic energy.
According to the Global Wind Energy Council, global installed capacity reached over 740 GW in 2020.
The United States, China, and Europe are among the top countries for wind power installations.
Onshore wind farms use turbines with blades up to 100 meters long, while offshore farms can reach heights of over 150 meters.
Wind energy reduces greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on fossil fuels.
From Vice-Chancellor to Chancellor Candidate
Since the last federal election, Habeck has taken on a pivotal role as vice-chancellor and Economy Minister. In 2022, Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine led to a sudden end of cheap oil and gas imports from Russia to Germany. Habeck went on a mission to secure energy imports, such as LNG deliveries from the United States.
However, his popularity suffered due to the botched introduction of a law aimed at phasing out oil and gas heating systems. The German economy’s downturn and the threat of mass redundancies in the industrial sector also contributed to criticism of Habeck’s leadership.
New Alliances Ahead
Following the breakdown of the center-left coalition over budget issues in November 2024, Habeck openly expressed his disappointment. He has since emphasized the Green Party‘s openness to new alliances after the February 2025 vote, including a possible coalition with the conservatives from the center-right CDU/CSU bloc.
Habeck’s determination to carry on and stay in power despite his party’s low polling numbers is evident. As he stated in 2022, ‘We may not be able to win a majority with these measures, but they still have to be taken because they are the right decisions for the country in the long term.‘
