For the first time in years, there are clear tensions in the SPD’s program and personnel. After the disastrous result of the European elections, all wings of the party are demanding consequences, but they have very different ideas about what this means.
Since the weekend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has had to manage two crises at the same time: the budget dispute in the federal government and the slowly escalating conflict over direction in his SPD. On the day of his return from the Ukraine summit in Switzerland, Scholz had to deal with both: his party’s executive committee meeting on Sunday afternoon, followed by budget negotiations with Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner. The crises at home are pressing. Scholz left the summit on time.
The Social Democrats are alarmed: The results of the European and local elections on June 9 were disastrous. The party is also facing trouble in the state elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia in September, but even more so in the federal elections next year. A number of elected representatives are having to fear for their offices. This makes a long-simmering debate about the party’s direction, overshadowed by the 2021 election success, all the more forceful. It revolves around the questions: Who are “our people” and what do they want?
More SPD or more Denmark?
The Democratic Left 21 forum officially put these questions on the SPD’s agenda. The left-wing group within the SPD has been calling for a “change of course in government policy” since the weekend. In a member survey, DL21 – in short – wants to hold a vote on the SPD’s continued participation in the austerity policy largely set by the FDP. The left wing of the party is calling for a departure from the rigid requirements of the debt brake and a massive investment boost, not least in the areas of social affairs, education and health. From the forum’s point of view, this is the core brand of the Social Democrats.
The conservatives from the Seeheimer Circle see things very differently: They believe that the issue of migration is the door back into the hearts of voters: “We should take a very close look at the course of the Nordic Social Democrats,” Dirk Wiese told the “Tagesspiegel”. Denmark’s Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen advocates a particularly restrictive approach to immigrants compared to the EU. SPD deputy parliamentary group leader Wiese is also chairman of the Seeheimer. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil is considered to be part of the wing. The Seeheimer are also particularly aggressive in supporting Scholz. Wiese defended himself in the “Tagesspiegel” against criticism from the head of the Juso, Philipp Türmer, who sees major promises of deportation as a betrayal of basic social democratic values. Türmer is currently perhaps Scholz’s harshest critic within the party.
Kühnert and Scholz in the crosshairs
A wing dispute is currently breaking out, which the then SPD general secretary and current party chairman Klingbeil had to pacify with great effort. His co-chair Saskia Esken and the current general secretary Kevin Kühnert belong to the left wing of the party. SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich also does, but the Seeheimers now have the largest group of MPs behind them. Personnel debates are running along this line of conflict: party leftists are demanding that Scholz give the SPD a greater profile in the traffic light coalition. The other side is more likely to pin its frustration on Scholz’s former opponent Kühnert, who was responsible for the unsuccessful election campaign. It is unclear whether the internal party snipes are primarily a release of frustration or the first sparks from a fuse that has just been lit.
How this conflict continues depends largely on the Chancellor: Will Scholz find a way to suspend the debt brake in talks with Habeck and Lindner, citing the situation in Ukraine? Then the pressure to save would suddenly be off and the traffic light coalition would not have to talk about cuts to citizens’ income or pensions, and could also spend more money to stimulate the economy. Or will Lindner’s extensive savings targets, which Scholz demonstratively supported in May, remain the same? “Sweat” is the order of the day, Scholz told the cabinet members. But less social spending while military spending is constantly rising is hard to explain to many SPD members, and that applies not only to the party’s left wing. On the Tuesday after the European elections, the SPD parliamentary group had already discussed the right lessons with Scholz.
Ukraine course is not rewarded
And there is another issue that is troubling the SPD: how will it deal with Ukraine and Russia in the future? “Prudence,” “peace,” and “security” were characteristics that voters should associate with Scholz in the European election campaign. That was the tenor of his campaign appearances. That was the message of the election posters. Scholz’s course of measured support for Ukraine should have paid into the SPD’s account. In view of the result, the question now arises as to whether Scholz’s “yes, but” course will resonate with his own clientele. In the European elections, the SPD lost almost 600,000 people each to the AfD and BSW, who strongly oppose military support for Ukraine. The move to the AfD and BSW on June 9 is likely to have been taken primarily by East Germans who had still voted for the SPD in 2021.
The attempt to use the Chancellor as an anchor of stability has not worked. The only conceivable alternative to Scholz is Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius. However, the pragmatist from Lower Saxony, with his loud calls for rearmament and conscription, is hardly seen as a savior by the SPD left. Speculation about Pistorius as a candidate for chancellor is unlikely to subside. For the time being, however, the party debate is circling around the direction of the content: should we push through more left-wing policies again or hold the traffic light coalition together in the hope of a turnaround in the coming months?
In 2021, Scholz became chancellor largely because of the weakness of his competitors. He was never loved and, according to his personal poll ratings, he is even less so today. But the promise of “respect” to the working middle of society was a central building block of a well-executed federal election campaign. People in the east in particular benefited from the promised and implemented 12 euro minimum wage. But then war-related inflation ate up any jumps in income. The SPD now wants to go into the next election campaign with the promise of a 15 euro minimum wage. It also proudly points to its pension package, which sets the retirement age and only drives up pension contributions in the medium term – but then noticeably.
In migration policy it is never enough
In less left-wing parts of the SPD, the impression has grown that SPD voters are driven by completely different issues than the promise of the welfare state: well-paid jobs must be as safe as the streets. Before the average citizen deals with future issues such as poverty in old age and the consequences of possible unemployment, he or she first wants to have the present clarified. “Without security, everything else is nothing,” Scholz has repeatedly told people. After the knife attack in Mannheim, the Chancellor declared his support for the deportation of criminals to Afghanistan and Syria.
According to a report in “Spiegel”, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser is already negotiating with Afghanistan’s neighboring country Uzbekistan about a deportation route for Afghans who are no longer wanted in Germany. The problem with migration policy: noticeable reductions in the number of arrivals rarely occur quickly and reliably. And more can always be done. The opposition has an easy job in this area.
Torn country, torn SPD
Migration is only partially suitable as a campaign topic for a party that is at heart left-wing like the SPD. And that is certainly not the case in the east, where the right-wing radical AfD, which calls for “remigration”, has become the strongest force across the board. But the SPD cannot afford to ignore the east either, and not just because of the three upcoming state elections. Almost all of the eastern constituencies went to the SPD in the federal election, only Saxony and southern Thuringia went to the AfD’s direct candidates. In the European elections, almost all eastern districts were AfD-blue. Not surprisingly, Thuringia’s Interior Minister and SPD top candidate for the state elections, Georg Maier, was one of the first Social Democrats to speak out in favor of deportations to Afghanistan.
The SPD’s debate about its direction also reflects the divisions in the country it governs: in the cities, especially in western Germany, different issues are being discussed than in the countryside, particularly in the east. Added to this are the different premises of young and old. The party wants to offer something to everyone, but is currently no one’s first choice. According to Infratest dimap, 33 percent of workers voted for the AfD, 24 percent for the CDU/CSU and only 12 percent for the SPD. The people the SPD likes to count as “our people” did not vote based on welfare state promises.
The SPD cannot currently expect any advantage from early elections. It is too far removed from its last federal election result of almost 26 percent. Challenging the FDP with a vote of confidence – “Give in or give up the traffic light coalition!” – therefore seems unattractive. The proposed member survey could also have the opposite effect. The Democratic Left 21 Forum should also know that Scholz is allergic to attempts to put pressure on him.