BERLIN — The German Green Party wants to reshuffle the economic, foreign and climate policies of the continent’s largest economy in a political realignment that could have a profound impact on the European Union and potentially harden Germany’s position towards China and Russia.

According to opinion polls, the Greens are expected to be part of the next ruling coalition after the legislative elections this fall – for the first time since 2005 – and may even lead it.

Rooted in an unruly alliance of 1970s environmentalists, leftists and pacifists, the Greens have grown into an established party with strong support among high-income city dwellers and polling rates of around 20%. This makes it the second party after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

Their agenda goes beyond climate change measures and would break long-established German political taboos around public debt and fiscal integration in Europe while aligning foreign policy more with that of the United States.

The party is demanding 50 billion euros per year, or $ 58.7 billion, in green investments, largely financed by public loans. This would almost certainly go against the strict rules of budgetary balance enshrined in the German constitution.