Last weekend, the German SPD held its first party congress after a clear defeat in the national elections. A remarkable speech by the new party chairman Sigmar Gabriel, an honest debate on the SPD’s policies in government in the past eleven years, a good debate about the social democratic priorities for the future and the willingness of different party fractions to work together, all brought new hope to SPD members and party leaders. There was a widespread feeling of this congress representing a leap towards a brighter future for the German Social Democratic Party, after the election defeats of the past. Sigmar Gabriel, the former environment minister and former prime minister of the state Lower Saxony was elected as new Party Chairman with 94% of the votes. The new General Secretary will be Andrea Nahles, MP, former deputy chairperson of the SPD and former spokesperson of the left stream in the party. Martin Schulz, President of the S&D group in the European Parliament was elected as special representative for the European Union, a newly created position.

Similarly to the parallel process in the PES, the aim of the SPD party congress was not to agree on a detailed analysis of the election defeat and was not the formulation of a new comprehensive vision for the social democratic positions of the future.  The intention was rather to launch a two-year in-depth debate on the future direction, including all members and all levels of the SPD, trade unions and civil society. The new party chairperson emphasized that one of the mistakes made was the misunderstanding of the “new centre”. There is no stable group of voters representing this “centre” and it does not help to adapt our policies to what we believe is expected from us.

Instead we must formulate the right questions, provide the right answers, and listen to what policies the people want. The key questions for the coming years will be: Who should set the rules, the economy or elected politicians? Welfare and chances for many citizens or only for a few? Solidarity or individual responsibility? Access to good education for only a few or for many citizens? How to integrate those people coming from abroad? How should international relations look like in the future: old style realism or multilateralism? Sigmar Gabriel stressed that there is also no clear definition of what is left. For him, being on the left means fighting for a society which is fair; in which equilibrium is achieved between freedom and responsibility, between freedom and solidarity, and between freedom and justice.

After difficult debates in the past between different streams within the party, the left, the centre and the right, this congress showed a new unity. All streams are represented in the party leadership and the political positions have  converged. Decisions during the party congress already show a new political direction: in the future, social democratic policy will directly follow the interests of employees, decent work and good living conditions are the central objectives, a new property tax will be introduced, financial markets should be regulated and a better regulation of temporary work should be introduced.

The PES had a strong presence at the SPD Congress. In a PES stand we presented the concept of the PES activists and informed many SPD members about the work of the PES. There was a large number of German PES activists who  visited us and helped to motivate more comrades to join the PES activists. There were a number of fruitful talks between Philip Cordery, PES General Secretary, with leading SPD members about strengthening the cooperation between  party levels.