The result was clearer than the debate suggested.

The vast majority approved the Federal Executive Committee's motion to support Ukraine, a few abstained, and only one Green rejected it.

The small party conference of the Greens on Saturday in Düsseldorf was the first opportunity since the beginning of the war for the grassroots to comment on the government's course.

The motion of the party leadership entitled "For peace in Ukraine: Oppose Putin's aggressive war" corresponds to the position of the Green ministers in the government: There the goal is found, gradually but as quickly as possible, independent of coal, oil and gas To become Russia, the requirement to continue and, where possible, accelerate the supply of weapons to Ukraine and expand them to include heavy weapons and complex systems.

Helen Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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The Green Youth had submitted a counter-motion, for which there was a lot of approval in the debate, but which was clearly rejected in the end.

The youth organization of the Greens is not fundamentally opposed to financial support from the Bundeswehr; according to the application, it wants the soldiers to be better equipped.

But the Green Youth first wants to reform the procurement system and determine the need before additional funds are to flow to the Bundeswehr.

Timon Dzienus, one of the two spokesmen for the Green Youth, argued in Düsseldorf: The motto "a lot helps a lot" does not apply to the Bundeswehr, and the Ukraine does not benefit if "supposed strength" is shown with large sums of money.

In the debate, Sebastian Hansen from Würzburg warned that the Bundeswehr was a "bottomless pit" into which hundreds of billions should not fall before a reform of the procurement system.

Ivy Müller from Hamburg was even sharper: the Bundeswehr may have the seventh largest budget in the world, but they don't even have the money for enough helmets.

“Someone is making money from this structural problem all the time.” She warned that the money for the special fund is not “raining down from heaven”, but that cuts in social benefits are to be expected.

The speakers of the Green Youth were unanimous: In the middle of the negotiations between the traffic light and the Union about the special fund - the consent of the opposition is necessary because of the amendment to the Basic Law - the green negotiating position must be strengthened by guardrails instead of issuing a blank check.

Omid Nouripour, the party leader, sees things differently.

He had the thankless task of promoting the special fund, about which the Greens shook their heads when the Chancellor first mentioned it in his "Zeitenwende" speech on February 27th.

The motion by the Green Youth would weaken the Greens' negotiating position, he says.

The Greens do not want to give the CDU the through ball for claiming that rearmament cannot be done with the Greens.

The plan is the reverse: accuse the Union of having ruined the Bundeswehr in sixteen years at the head of the Defense Ministry.