The electronic voting system went on strike at the Green Party’s federal congress in Graz at the weekend. But the manual counting of the delegate votes worked perfectly, and the results when compiling the list of candidates for the EU election were clear: Lena Schilling, 23-year-old climate activist and already designated first on the list, was impressively voted by the base with 96.6 percent in this role confirmed.
The Viennese promised to be “loud, brave and also a bit cheeky”. She had previously emphasized in her speech that she wasn’t taking the step into politics just now, because as an activist with “Fridays for Future” and with “Lobau Stays” she had already acted in the same way, just from the street. “Every citizens’ initiative, every protest – all of that is also politics. And that’s exactly where I come from, from civil society, from the climate movement. And I would like to represent that more strongly in the European Parliament,” said Schilling.
Image: VOLKER WEIHBOLD
Behind Schilling, EU mandater Thomas Waitz will run for second place on the green list, followed in third place by Upper Austrian state parliament member Ines Vukajlovic – she received 70 percent of the delegate votes.
Third place on the list is considered a fighting mandate, because in the 2019 EU elections the Greens achieved their best EU election result to date with 14 percent – and this gave them three seats in the EU Parliament. Holding these three mandates is also the declared goal of the Greens, whose party leader, Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, was the top candidate in the EU elections in 2019. At that time, the Greens were eliminated from parliament in the 2017 National Council elections; the 2019 EU elections were the first opportunity to fight their way back into the spotlight.
Upper Austria’s Green Party leader Stefan Kaineder showered roses on the 32-year-old Vukajlovic, who came third on the list: “She is a fantastic candidate who has distinguished herself in the state parliament through great commitment and specialist knowledge and has earned respect and recognition in a short time.” Vukajlovic was born in Wels, studied politics and communication in Vienna and Amsterdam, was deputy head of the state’s integration office and has been a member of the state parliament since 2021.
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