Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) is expected to lose significant support in the upcoming federal elections, according to opinion polls. Ugur Tekiner It explains why the tension between idealism and recent pragmatic changes to the party’s European policy has contributed to its decline in appeal.
German voters will head to the polls for federal elections on February 23. Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), the largest partner in the now-defunct ‘traffic light coalition’ between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP), is performing poorly in opinion polls and is even lagging behind the far-right AfD. There were high expectations that the Social Democratic Party would rebound and return to power in the 2021 German federal election, but the Social Democratic Party also faced significant obstacles. The current situation shows that the latter cannot be overcome.
An important element of this is the SPD’s European policy, which plays an important role in the party’s performance at national and European levels. Indeed, the first signs of the SPD’s decline came in last year’s European elections. At that time, SPD fell to third place with less than 14% of the vote. In recent years, the EU’s state of “multiple crises” has made European issues too important to ignore, and this failure has set the tone for subsequent federal election campaigns.
pro-European idealism
In a new study, I use semi-structured interviews with 16 prominent SPD party elites and archival research to trace the evolution of the SPD’s European stance since German reunification in 1990. After unification, the Social Democrats became increasingly caught between idealistic pro-Europeanism and domestic ideologically driven concerns about European integration. This conflict led to a pragmatic shift in the party’s official EU policy towards the “Berlin Republic”.
Before unification in 1990, the SPD had an idealistic commitment to the European project. The party’s contribution to deepening European integration, especially under two historic chancellors, Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, has now been frequently cited. Another supporting factor was the inter-party consensus that existed in Germany over Europe, particularly between the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Christian Democrats.
This agreement helped solidify pro-European views in West German politics. However, in Europe the ideological differences between the SPD and other political parties have also largely been resolved. In a sense, the SPD’s idealism prevented it from advancing the social democratic argument in favor of European integration. And this has also reduced the political importance of Europe for the party.
practical change
This situation changed dramatically after unification. First, like other mainstream political parties, the Social Democratic Party also had to deal with various political, economic, and social issues arising from unification. Additionally, there has been a surge in public euroscepticism that emerged during the debate over replacing the German mark with the euro. The SPD’s growing concerns about European integration prompted key party figures, including former leaders Hans-Jochen Vogel, Gerhard Schröder and Oskar Lafontaine, to join elements of monetary integration at the time. It was clear from the fact that they were critical of it.
Second, Schröder took a hard-line policy toward the EU after taking office as prime minister in 1998. Schröder’s government cut Germany’s share of the EU budget in a Thatcherite style in 1999, reallocated EU Council of Ministers seats in 2000, and the EU imposed transitional restrictions on labor migration from Central and Eastern Europe prior to EU enlargement in 2004. applied.
As several interviewees pointed out, the final decision on transition restrictions, even if it came from within the EU, was largely influenced by the SPD’s intention to protect German workers from external competition. But beyond alarming Germany’s EU partners, especially France, and straining German-EU relations, the move reflected broader ideological concerns that prompted pragmatic changes to the SPD’s European agenda.
competitive vision
Official party documents previously referred to the “United States of Europe” as the “final destination”, but this was no longer party policy under Schröder. Another decisive consequence of the SPD’s pragmatic turn was the increased political and ideological importance of Europe. Unlike in previous decades, Europe was now at the center of programmatic debates, and the SPD sought to develop a distinct social democratic vision for the EU.
This was revealed in the SPD leaders’ attempts to reshape the EU to suit their ideological agenda. Oskar Lafontaine sought to position the EU as a collective response to the encroachments of globalization and Anglo-Saxon capitalism. In contrast, Schröder new middle (New Centre) aimed to reform the EU in a centrist way, working with Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labor. Despite their differences in goals, both discourses emphasized the importance of the EU as an ideological asset for the SPD.
Today, as European policy evolves, the SPD’s unconditional support for the EU has given way to a conditional approach. This does not mean that the party’s idealistic vision of European integration has completely disappeared. Rather, there is now a tension between this idealism and the new pragmatism. These two competing approaches have made it difficult for the SPD to speak with one voice on Europe, worsening the party’s bleak outlook ahead of the federal election.
For more details, please refer to the author’s attached paper. Ankara European Research Review.
Note: This article gives the views of the author and not the position of EUROPP (European Politics and Policy) or the London School of Economics. Main image source: Christy Dansonorgi /Shutterstock.com
