Leaders of Germany’s SPD set out priorities for new party programme

Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) wants to focus on tackling inequality, strengthening the welfare state and addressing people’s everyday concerns as it begins work on a new policy platform, party leaders said on Saturday.

Co-leaders Bärbel Bas and Lars Klingbeil formally launched the process at the party’s headquarters in Berlin, outlining a vision centred on labour rights, educational mobility and social solidarity amid rapid geopolitical transformation.

Both politicians serve in the centre-right government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Klingbeil, who serves as Germany’s vice chancellor and finance minister, delivered a sobering assessment as he warned that the rules-based order is ending as international norms are increasingly undermined by raw economic power and military force.

“There is no point in mourning a world that no longer exists. The old world will not return. Nostalgia will not help,” he said, adding that the liberal era was “coming to an end right before our eyes.”

Social Democratic policy must remain a policy of peace, responsibility and solidarity, he said.

For Germany, this also meant tackling inequality in wealth and opportunities. Constant talk of benefit cuts and privatization, he warned, was creating stress and anxiety among many people.

Bas said the welfare state was being unfairly maligned “as a drag on economic growth,” adding that strong social protections were especially important in times of major change.

She cited proposals to scrap telephone sick notes, the right to part-time work or coverage of dental treatment costs. “All of this is a wrecking ball for workers’ rights,” she said, adding that such ideas showed a lack of respect for the lives and problems of ordinary people.

Instead, she said, policy should once again be shaped around people’s daily realities and needs, with the SPD deriving its positions “from everyday experience.”