Frustration among the party’s young people
Scholz prefers to stay away from the Juso Congress
November 15, 2023, 5:20 a.m
Chancellor Scholz’s demand for deportations “on a large scale” is giving quite a few Social Democrats a stomach ache. The party’s young generation becomes clear: “I could puke,” comments a leading young socialist. The topic is also likely to cause heated discussions at the upcoming Juso Congress – but without Scholz.
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil will be there, as will party leader Saskia Esken and General Secretary Kevin Kühnert: It is not the case that the SPD celebrities would ignore the Federal Congress of the Young Socialists, which is scheduled to take place from Friday to Sunday. But one person is missing from the Juso annual conference for the second time in a row: Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned down the invitation to Braunschweig some time ago for scheduling reasons. There is now criticism of this from the youth association of the SPD with its around 70,000 members, which, with 49 members, also makes up almost a quarter of the parliamentary group. “I would have found it right if Olaf Scholz had taken part in the discussion with us at the Juso federal congress,” said board member Philipp Türmer, who is running for the Juso chairmanship on Friday.
There is “tremendous displeasure” among the Jusos, particularly about the Chancellor’s recent statements about “deportations on a large scale.” “However, I am sure that the Jusos’ messages and demands from this congress will be so loud that he will notice them – no matter where he is.” Scholz said in a “Spiegel” interview: “We finally have to deport on a large scale those who have no right to stay in Germany.” Several Jusos criticized this in clear terms. Türmer wrote on the X platform: “I could vomit at this quote.” The comment on the Jusos’ central X account was also hearty: “A demand straight from the vocabulary of the right-wing mob,” it said there. “What is completely lost is that social democracy means politics with humanitarian values.”
Schröder never came
Scholz was deputy federal chairman of the Jusos from 1982 to 1988 and later repeatedly took part in federal congresses in various capacities, most recently in 2021 shortly before he was sworn in as Chancellor. Last year, however, he stayed away from the federal congress, and this time too the chancellor’s office of the SPD executive board announced: “Other dates have already been agreed for a longer period of time, so it is not possible for Mr. Scholz to take part in the federal congress of the Jusos. The exchange with the Jusos The Federal Executive Board will of course continue to exist in the future.”
It is not unusual for a chancellor to reject the Jusos. Despite intensive archive research, the press office of the youth association was unable to find a single appearance by Gerhard Schröder at a Juso federal congress during his seven years as chancellor. And Schröder has an even higher-ranking Juso past than Scholz: he was at the head of the association from 1978 to 1980.