Greens in Germany's southwest: Wellhäußer and Schmitt to lead Özdemir's party
Clara Wellhäußer, 27, from Freiburg and Özdemir confidant Jan-Lukas Schmitt are the new state leaders of the Greens in Baden-Württemberg. Schmitt clearly distanced himself from the CDU.
Archive image · Photo: Leonhard Lenz / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (cropped and resized)
The Greens in Baden-Württemberg have a new dual leadership. At the state party convention in Offenburg on Saturday, delegates elected 27-year-old lawyer Clara Wellhäußer with almost 93% and 31-year-old Jan-Lukas Schmitt with 81% of the vote. There were no rival candidates. The two succeed Lena Schwelling and Pascal Haggenmüller, who had led the party since 2021 and did not run again.
Wellhäußer is a city councilor in Freiburg, is considered part of the party's left wing and has served, among other roles, as spokesperson for the Green Youth. She supports examining a procedure to ban the AfD. Schmitt, a former business journalist, belongs to the pragmatic "Realo" wing, most recently ran the election campaign of state Premier Cem Özdemir and is regarded as his close confidant. Referring to the Green-CDU coalition, he said: "We govern with the CDU, but we have not merged with them."
Özdemir has governed in Stuttgart since May 2026; the Greens hold 56 seats in the state parliament. In one poll they stand at 30%, keeping them in the lead, according to the report. At the convention, Özdemir said: "Representative, liberal democracy is far from dead." He said 66% of the electricity generated in Baden-Württemberg this year comes from renewable sources.