BERLIN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- The German Green party has reached its record high with 26 percent, only 1 percent behind the conservative union of CDU/CSU, according to the Politbarometer survey published by German public broadcaster ZDF on Thursday.
In the first Politbarometer survey after the European elections, the Greens gained 6 percentage points. The CDU/CSU, on the other hand, lost 3 percentage points and currently stands at 27 percent.
Green party leader Robert Habeck continued to be Germany's most popular politician. However, with 48 percent, a "comparatively large proportion" was unable to rate Habeck because respondents did not know him.
For the first time ever, climate protection and environmental issues have become by far the most important problem in Germany, according to the Politbarometer.
Most people in Germany would like to see more speed in the expansion of renewable energy. 60 percent believed that the expansion of renewable energy was progressing too slowly, 30 percent thought it would be just right and only 6 percent thought that the expansion is going too fast.
The German Social Democrats (SPD) continued their downward trend and fell by 3 percentage points to only 13 percent of the votes, its worst result to date according to the Politbarometer.
Half of the respondents believed that the SPD would recover after the bad election results. However, almost the same proportion with 46 percent of the respondents in Germany is critical of this.
With regards to other political parties in Germany, 13 percent of Germans would vote for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The Left party and the German liberal party (FDP) would each get 7 percent of the votes, the Politbarometer showed.
Germans polled were unsure about the stability of the grand coalition between CDU/CSU and SPD. 47 percent believed that Merkel's government coalition to hold until the next scheduled election in 2021 while 46 percent expected it to break apart prematurely.
