Perhaps it's not surprising that the German campaign for chancellor between Gerhard Schroeder and his opponent Angela Merkel is getting off to a slow start. After all, Schroeder's unexpected call to move elections up by a year to this autumn caught all parties off guard and they have been struggling to catch up -- and struggling to quickly tack together some kind of campaign platform. No party, however, was caught more off guard than Schroeder's coalition partners, the Greens. And yet it was the Greens on Tuesday who became the first party to offer up a clear indication of what they stand for in the coming election. Calling themselves a "modern leftist party" and concentrating primarily on economic policies, the Greens are demanding higher taxes for the rich, a smaller tax burden for the poor and a higher minimum wage.

But despite the concrete sounding proposals, major German dailies rip them on Wednesday for offering up what commentators see as a vague package that does little to clearly define the party against other left-leaning parties nor does it provide realistic explanations for how it expects its demands to be funded.

The center-left daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung begins by referring to the rather large size of the platform paper delivered by the Greens on Tuesday; at 40 pages, it is way too much for voters to get a handle on. Even worse, the programs and proposals are vague and "nebulous." Still, the Greens have managed to unite their party behind the document and are entering the campaign without the bickering that characterizes the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats. But, "the citizens don't know who they are electing when they cast their vote for the Greens. (Current foreign minister and face of the Greens) Joschka Fischer is once again the leading candidate, but nobody knows if he will retain a leadership position after (the) September 18 (election).... For a party whose most important platform plank was always Fischer, this incertitude is a problem -- a problem that even a 400-page package couldn't have solved."

The financial daily Handelsblatt argues that the Green party is, with its platform, doing the splits. They say they want to help the unemployed, but then demand a minimum wage. They say they want to lower Germany's budget deficit, but then argue that more money needs to be spent on social security and investment. "In other words, at a time when the country has to decide whether to go full speed ahead toward renewal or not, the Greens answer is to do both." Part of the problem, the paper writes, is that it is a difficult time to be a leftist party in Germany. The Greens, after all, just spent the last seven years in a governing coalition which was committed to cutting back on German social benefits -- but at the same time tried to convince voters that were they not there, the cuts would be much more painful. Now, they have lost their orientation. "The Greens are led by people who were politicized in a time when 'leftist' and 'modern' were considered synonyms. Leftists were those who demanded change at any cost. Now, the trend has reversed. Now, leftists are those who are afraid of change."

Even the papers from the left side of the political spectrum that one might expect to defend the Greens at all costs are critical of the platform -- yet try to put a positive spin on it. The Berliner Zeitung comments optimistically that "all groupings and wings of the party were included. The result is a balanced program that all can live with. That is positive.... But in some of the central points, they remained vague." And the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung, whose page one headline on Wednesday blares sarcastically "Greens: Paradise is Coming. We Promise!", spends much of its front-page editorial outlining the weaknesses of the platform. But its conclusion is positive. "All in all, it has to be seen as a positive that the Greens didn't retreat into their fortress of ecological demands and instead entered into the leftist debate."

Also on Wednesday, some German dailies continued looking closely at the health of the European Union following the failure of the budget debate late last week. Specifically, many commentators seem almost relieved that the vital question of Europe's future -- namely the question as to whether the union should be a loose economic confederation or a more tightly knit political federation -- is now finally being addressed.

Germany, from the perspective of the Financial Times Deutschland, is doing far too little to contribute to the discussion. Essentially, the choice has been presented as being between the British concept of "Europe lite" focused on free markets, and the French idea of a political union focused on social equality. The German model, the paper argues, contains elements of both -- and that is a position that could be presented as a viable alternative. "Germany's role in this debate should not be as passive as it has been under (German chancellor Gerhard) Schroeder. (Chancellor candidate Angela) Merkel is also wrong with her demand that Germany be an 'honest broker of the interests of all in the EU.' Germany's role is not to arbitrate between Great Britain and France, but rather to push through its own vision of Europe. That isn't a German Third Way. Rather, it is a position that a large majority of EU member states can agree on -- namely for a social, economically liberal and politically strong Europe."