Robert Habeck looked surprised. Someone just gave him a lighter. He had to use it to light an oil lamp. The German Economy Minister visited SFC Energy in Delhi, a company that wants to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels in the future. SFC produces fuel cells that use hydrogen. At some point with green hydrogen. However, oil is not at all symbolically appropriate. “The fire is supposed to bring good luck,” someone whispered to him. And: “This is definitely not Russian oil.” Habeck grinned and turned on the light.

Economic relations are deeply political, even if they involve only small actions – Habeck feels this again and again on this trip. He has been there since Wednesday with a large business delegation India on the way. From the start, he did not hide the fact that geopolitics in particular again made the country attractive as a trading partner. “We don't want to separate ourselves from China. But we want to reduce risks,” he said on Thursday morning at the opening of the Germany-India trade conference. That's why, Habeck said, the EU wants to finalize a free trade agreement with India in the coming months if possible.

About the topic Free trade Many Greens have long been exiled. Even today, some people still grumble when this word is mentioned. Because free traders, just a reminder, want to reduce trade barriers. They want fewer or ideally no tariffs and regulations. They demand that most politicians stay out of world markets and not include clauses in their trade agreements to protect people or nature. For them, the most important thing to protect is their property.

Many Green Parties take part in globalization protests

This type of trade does not exist in its purest form anywhere in the world, but for some time this idea has been a leitmotif in many powerful governments: in Washington, DC, in Berlin, in London, and in a number of other capitals, the politicians want to reduce as many trade barriers as possible – in the belief that this will improve their country's economy and cause prices to fall for consumers.

Most Greens never thought much about it. For a long time, they have viewed free trade as the worse sibling of unfettered capitalism. A form of globalization that is too detrimental to nature and the poor. Without the additional words “social” and “ecological”, these things would be useless in trade policy. Therefore, most of these countries frontally oppose the prevailing trade policies and firmly side with opponents of globalization. At least while they were still in opposition.

Many Green Party figures took part when globalization skepticism led more than 200,000 people to take to the streets in Berlin in 2016. Simone Peter, the Green Party leader at the time, was there. Little-known Brandenburg politician Annalena Baerbock walked alongside him. And in the background, Sven Giegold, Green MEP and co-founder of the globalization-critical NGO Attac, is mobilizing. Protests against the planned TTIP trade agreement with the United States and against the European-Canadian Ceta agreement were so strong that the then Social Democratic Minister of Economics, Sigmar Gabriel, had to re-approve his general trade policy at a specially convened SPD party congress. For a while he even had to worry that something might go wrong.