The
Global Profile
At 23,
Surviving Scandal to Take a Green Seat in the E.U. Parliament
Lena
Schilling, the youngest lawmaker in Brussels, faced a harsh questioning of her
character and credibility before winning a chance to fight against climate
change in the halls of power.
Valeriya
Safronova
By
Valeriya Safronova
Dec. 20,
2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/world/europe/lena-schilling-austria-greens.html
Campaigning
for a seat in the European Parliament this spring, Lena Schilling was already
facing an uphill battle, with her Green Party expected to fare poorly in the
election across the continent.
Then came
a devastating takedown by a major news media outlet attacking not her policies
but her character, with the ensuing controversy possibly making an already
difficult situation for the Greens even worse.
On May 7,
Der Standard, one of Austria’s leading newspapers, published an article stating
that Ms. Schilling, a 23-year-old whose climate activism had already given her
a prominent national profile, “has a problematic relationship with the truth,
plays people off each other and leaves a scorched earth in her wake.”
The next
morning, Ms. Schilling defended herself at a news conference, saying the
accusations had nothing to do “with politics or Europe or the upcoming
elections.”
The
article, which accused Ms. Schilling of spreading damaging rumors about
colleagues and friends and manipulating fellow climate activists, generated
significant attention in Austria, and powerful defenders and detractors of Ms.
Schilling lined up on opposing sides.
Werner
Kogler, Austria’s vice chancellor and the country’s Green Party spokesman,
called the article “anonymous murmurs.” Austria’s president, Alexander Van der
Bellen, offered his support.
But the
country’s tabloids took to calling Ms. Schilling “Lying Lena,” and the
controversy crossed international borders, with Der Spiegel in Germany giving
her the mocking title of “Gossip Girl.”
“I wanted
to enter politics because I wanted to change how we dealt with climate issues
because it’s harming millions,” Ms. Schilling said in a recent interview. “And
instead, we talked a lot about my private life and things that shouldn’t be in
public.”
The
revelations were personally painful and politically damaging.
“After
the scandal, what was left was a real question about the sincerity and
trustworthiness of Lena Schilling as a candidate,” said Jakob-Moritz Eberl, an
election researcher at the University of Vienna.
But by
June, after withstanding weeks of withering scrutiny, Ms. Schilling enjoyed
some good news.
The
Austrian Press Council determined that Der Standard had violated “the code of
honor” with its overuse of anonymous quotes.
And Ms.
Schilling was one of the two Green Party members in Austria to secure a seat in
the election, and she was sworn in as the youngest member of the current
European Parliament.
The media
uproar was her first major challenge as a politician, but as a young female
lawmaker, she expects more to come.
“I find
that even in 2024, many people won’t take you seriously because of your gender
or age,” Ms. Schilling said. “I want to show people they’re wrong.”
To some
observers, her youth and gender played a significant role in the attacks from
the tabloids.
“This
intersection of her being a woman and being very young, it’s kind of new for
people in Austria,” said Sophie Lecheler, a communications professor at the
University of Vienna, who added that there “wasn’t a clear playbook” for such a
candidate. She described the news coverage overall as “chaotic, impulsive and
quite emotional.”
Ms.
Schilling’s parents took her to her first protest when she was a toddler. They
were in their early 20s when she was born and raised her in a “very loose” way,
she said. “They were always like, ‘You can do it, just try it.’ Sometimes it
went well and sometimes it didn’t.”
In the
working-class district in Vienna where she grew up, people had other concerns
besides the climate, Ms. Schilling said, and her “political thoughts were not
that welcome.” Eventually, as a teenager, she found her place among the city’s
climate activists.
In March
2019, months before she began studying toward a bachelor’s degree in political
science at the University of Vienna, she had her coming out as a movement
leader when she gave a speech during the first worldwide Fridays for Future
strike, in which students left classrooms to demand action on climate change.
The night
before, the prospect of speaking before a large crowd in Vienna was making her
feel ill. “I was sitting at home, shaking,” she said.
Before
going to bed, she checked her phone and saw that student protesters were
already on the streets in Australia. Her anxiety was replaced by inspiration.
“In 150
countries, there are a million young people who feel the same as me, and that
was one of those lightning moments,” she said.
Two and a
half years later, she and other young activists occupied a construction site on
the edge of a nature reserve outside Vienna, where the government was planning
to build a highway tunnel. Ms. Schilling became a spokeswoman.
A few
months into the protest, Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler, a
Green Party politician, called off the project.
“I saw
that strong women in politics can make a change,” Ms. Schilling said. “People
like her who fight for climate justice do it for decades, and then, suddenly,
she was in a position to make this decision.”
Last
year, Ms. Schilling, who has paused her pursuit of a degree, began writing a
column in a widely read Austrian newspaper, and this February the Green Party
announced she would be their top candidate for the European Parliament, making
her the face of their campaign.
Then came
the exposé of her personal life.
Der
Standard reported that Ms. Schilling had been sued by a former friend and her
friend’s husband for supposedly telling people that he had physically abused
his wife. The two sides reached an agreement in October, with Ms. Schilling
promising to correct the record about the couple, and the suit was dropped.
The
newspaper also contended that Ms. Schilling had invented a relationship with a
TV journalist, who later demanded and got a notarized statement from Ms.
Schilling that they did not know each other personally.
After the
scandal, there were those who wondered if the Greens would have fared better
with a less contentious, more experienced lead candidate, and one who had been
better vetted.
“How
could a scandal like that not have been on their radar?” said Mr. Eberl, the
election researcher.
Mr. Eberl
noted that Thomas Waitz, the secondary candidate for the Greens, had received
nearly double the votes Ms. Schilling had secured.
Ms.
Schilling concedes her behavior was far from flawless.
“I made
mistakes in my personal life,” she said. “I totally did. I’m a young person. I
apologized for those mistakes, and I took responsibility.”
Now that
she has taken her parliamentary seat, Ms. Schilling sees her five-year term as
a chance to prove she is a trustworthy politician for whom the climate crisis
is an absolute priority.
On a
cloudy September morning in Brussels, where the European Parliament meets, Ms.
Schilling returned to her office after early meetings and, with obvious relief,
sipped the day’s first coffee from a pink mug that read “Green Feminist.”
Despite having moved to Brussels two months earlier, Ms. Schilling hadn’t yet
found time to buy a coffee machine for her apartment — or a bed.
“I’m not
here for my personal comfort,” she said.
As a
member of the Greens, Ms. Schilling has her legislative work cut out for her.
Compared with 2019, when the Green Party triumphed in the European
parliamentary elections with its best showing ever, the atmosphere now is much
less optimistic. After losing one-quarter of their seats this June, the Greens
are leaning into a strategy of compromise and pragmatism.
“In
surveys, people care about the climate crisis, but other things in the moment
are more important, and I get that,” Ms. Schilling said. “There are so many
fears right now,” she added, listing not just the climate crisis, but Russia’s
war with Ukraine and inflation.
With the
campaign turbulence behind her, Ms. Schilling said she was now focused on
stopping the world from burning.
“Politics
isn’t about your personal feelings,” she said. “Politics is about fighting for
the best livelihood for the most people. You’re the fighter, but your personal
emotions shouldn’t be that relevant. The cause leads the way.”
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