4 percent for other parties in germany in this european election once again we want to stress that these are projections based on partial vote count that we have here in germany let's hear from the chairwoman of germany's green party on a box she had this to say after eclipsing the social democrats to finish 2nd you divide this election was a climate protection election this election was in the election for democracy. demands a human rights for a cosmopolitan near 0. that's why the folks which are making us happy not just greens. that they are folks for climate protection they are votes for democracy they are votes against populism they are votes for human rights in all of europe dear friend signed on for i know. arthur liberations there with the greens we have our chief political correspondent linda crane with us in our studio well

and if we took a headline away from this vote it would be you know the green wave 20.6 percent according to the results we have so far the 2nd biggest party and there's another figure i want to look at with you that i think we can bring in here as well that is pretty indicative of how well the greens have been doing they take a look here if we have this that at the youth vote so the pick people here are voting in germany under the age of 30 they show that 35 percent of all german phone voters under $24.00 sorry have voted green and as you can see the older the voters get the less likely they are to vote for the greens so melinda these are pretty astonishing figures and also to success in general what do you make of this fascinating well climate is the generational issue isn't it and we've seen that very clearly demonstrated for the last few months as all over europe thousands of young people took to the streets every friday skipping school to protest the fact that their governments and politicians in general weren't doing enough about

climate change but a lot of people were concerned in the run up to this election that nonetheless those young people who go to the streets wouldn't go to the ballot box because in fact youth turnout is often very very low particularly in the e.u. elections that does not appear to be the case this time around we still don't i think have exact figures on these turnout but turnout in general has been high and clearly turnout particularly for parties like the greens very high indeed a couple of messages go out from this result that we see here in germany for the greens 1st of all message to gnash. politicians we expect more the fact is the coalition's policy on climate and on environment has been quite muddled if we think of the diesel scandal involving germany's automakers if we think of all the debate about bans on on diesel emissions in cities but especially if we look at the very really painful discussion around phasing out burning brown coal so all of that

a message to national politicians also clearly voters ascribing competence to the e.u. at each level on environment we've seen that in a lot of surveys we see it in this election result that's good news for europe moving ahead on ambitious climate policy so one last thing green parties are winning in several other european countries as well are doing quite well austria arlan france that means we're going to see a bigger bloc of seats in the next to you parliament for the greens that gives them more bargaining power with those big parties shrinking they will be required to do more deals with parties like the greens in future and again that can put some dynamism in climate policy really interesting take away is there and really showing the shifting political landscape as you said melinda if it's a message to the traditional parties we also have to say it's a message to chancellor angela merkel's conservatives they got around. 8 point and they had gotten the last time a little bit less than they had hoped for. party head on and got come out with

speaking a little bit earlier let's listen to what she had to say about their results these are valid this election result is not the result we as a policy of the people expect of ourselves. we will meet next weekend and analyze the results and now tonight we completely say that there are several reasons that lead to these results. is often. one. yes suddenly we have not been dynamic enough in government. and we have failed to give convincing. photos across germany have rightly expected of us. aren't lined up we heard her say they're essentially we've got the message we haven't performed well enough we haven't delivered but it's really a continuation of this trend that we've seen in german politics also across europe

the splintering of the the middle the political middle absolutely just one fact since 1949 the 1st 2 places in every election on national level were reserved for the christian democrats with the variances to party and for the social democrats this is historic we are seeing the greens in 2nd place i cannot underline enough what kind of a massive tectonic shift that represents secondly here for and it could come qanbar she is not only the head of the christian democratic party she's the designated successor or you know the thought is that she would be the next chancellor but this historic record low for the c.d.u. has happened in the 1st election that she essentially has supervised as party leader meaning this is also quite problematic for her we are absolutely seeing a drift away from these big tent parties there are a lot of reasons for that some of them structural some of them long term some of

them trance european too complex perhaps to go into here but this is a very decided trend with big disadvantages for these 2 parties that are currently governing germany together yet what does that mean then for the stability of this government the social democrats as you said also performing taking a big hit at the polls indeed they also have seen their lowest record low performance well if you listen to what everybody is saying on the record from both parties they saying oh no this is not going to affect the grand coalition we must continue together we must essentially renew our messages and take them to the people but the fact is the. this is a definite a real blow for the social democrats this historic party coming in in 3rd place with all kinds of questions within the party about whether they are able to really have any kind of political identity anymore in this grand coalition where even when they put their own agendas shoes on the agenda they don't seem to get credit from

the voters there's been a lot of behind the scenes rumors about whether there might be a leadership putsch after the e.u. will action we've heard young members of the party saying we don't want to continue in this coalition that is so problematic for us now whether we'll see a fragmentation soon is very very unclear at the moment but expect to affect a lot of discussion and turbulence in coming weeks we'll be talking more about this through the course of the evening our chief political correspondent on the crane thank you melinda. our let's go back to brussels now where max huffman is standing by for us hi max so we've been just talking with melinda about some of the bigger trends we're seeing here are some of the numbers are becoming a bit clearer here what is your take on this there in brussels is it safe to say that we're also seeing this continuation of the splintering of the middle and the rise of other parties like the greens for example what do we take away from this.

what we have is a fragmentation you know it was a no brainer in the past also in germany for miles on the european level that if you had the 2 biggest parties the social democrats and the conservatives in this case the european people's party is that you would have a majority that is no longer the case meaning it will take $3.00 to $4.00 different factions in the european parliament to have a majority and that will change the way policy will be made that will change. the emphasis what they are talking about which kind of policy is important we talk to a lot of people tonight. here it seems that climate change fighting climate change will be on the front burner now something that was on the back burner in the past because you have the greens in the picture you can really talk about a green wave throughout europe now because not only in germany the greens have had good results but also in france with about 13 percent that has been that's pretty new no one seen before itself this will make things more complicated but for now it

seems like those parties the greens the liberals the conservatives and also the social democrats will be able to keep the right wing populists out of the picture but you know think about this it is likely that at least either the league from the tail side the in italy so rightly populous party or the brags that party from the u.k. .