Polling suggests the German Social Democrats (SPD) will suffer a significant loss of support in the upcoming federal elections. Uğur Tekiner explains why tension between idealism and a recent pragmatic shift in the party’s European policy has contributed to its declining appeal.
German voters will head to the polls on 23 February for federal elections. The German Social Democrats (SPD) – the biggest partner in the now defunct “traffic light coalition” between the SPD, the Greens and the FDP – are performing poorly in opinion polls, even falling behind the far-right AfD. Expectations were high when the SPD rebounded at the 2021 German federal elections to win power, yet the party also faced substantial obstacles. The current situation shows it has been unable to surmount the latter.
An important element of this is the SPD’s European policy, which plays a significant role in the party’s performance at the national and European levels. Indeed, the first signals of the SPD’s decline came during the European elections last year, when the party plummeted to third place with just under 14 per cent of the vote. The EU’s state of “polycrisis” during recent years has made European matters too important to ignore and this failure set the tone for the subsequent federal election campaign.
Pro-European idealism
In a new study, I trace the evolution of the SPD’s European position since German reunification in 1990 using semi-structured interviews with 16 high-profile SPD party elites and archival research. Since reunification, the SPD has found itself increasingly caught between idealistic pro-Europeanism and domestic ideology-driven concerns about European integration. This conflict has led to a pragmatic shift in the party’s official EU policy in the “Berlin Republic”.
Before reunification in 1990, the SPD had an idealistic commitment to the European project. The party’s contributions to deepening European integration, particularly under their two historic chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, were frequently cited at this time. Another supportive factor was the cross-party consensus that existed in Germany over Europe, notably between the SPD and the Christian Democrats.
This consensus helped entrench pro-European views in West German politics. However, it also largely eliminated ideological differences between the SPD and other parties when it came to Europe. In a sense, the SPD’s idealism prevented it from making a social democratic case for supporting European integration. And this also diminished the political salience of Europe for the party.
A pragmatic shift
This situation changed dramatically following reunification. First, like other mainstream parties, the SPD was forced to deal with a range of political, economic and social issues caused by reunification. Added to this was burgeoning public Euroscepticism that emerged during debates on replacing the Deutsche Mark with the euro. The SPD’s growing concerns over European integration were evident in the fact that key party figures, including former leaders Hans-Jochen Vogel, Gerhard Schröder and Oskar Lafontaine, were critical of elements of monetary integration at this time.
Second, Schröder took an assertive policy line against the EU after taking office as Chancellor in 1998. The Schröder government secured a reduction in German contributions to the EU budget in 1999 in a Thatcherite manner, rearranged seats in the EU Council of Ministers in 2000 and applied transitional restrictions on labour migration from Central and Eastern Europe prior to the EU’s 2004 enlargement.
As several interviewees indicated, the final decision on transitional restrictions was mainly influenced by the SPD’s intention to protect German workers from external competition, even if it came from inside the EU. Yet beyond surprising Germany’s EU partners, not least France, and straining Germany-EU relations, these steps also reflected wider ideological concerns that fostered a pragmatic shift in the SPD’s European agenda.
Competing visions
While a “United States of Europe” was previously mentioned as a “final destination” in official party documents, this ceased to be party policy under Schröder. Another crucial consequence of the SPD’s pragmatic turn was that Europe gained rising political and ideological salience. In contrast to previous decades, Europe was now at the centre of programmatic debates, with the SPD trying to develop a distinct social democratic vision for the EU.
This was visible in attempts by SPD leaders to reshape the EU in line with their ideological agendas. Oskar Lafontaine sought to designate the EU as a collective answer to the encroachments of globalisation and Anglo-Saxon capitalism. In contrast, Schröder’s Neue Mitte (New Centre) aimed to reform the EU in a centrist manner in tandem with Tony Blair’s New Labour. Despite differing in their goals, these two discourses both highlighted the greater prominence of the EU as an ideological asset for the SPD.
Today, as a result of the evolution of its European policy, the SPD’s unconditional support for the EU has changed to a conditional approach. This does not mean the party’s idealistic vision of European integration has entirely vanished. Rather, there is now tension between this idealism and the new pragmatism. These two competing approaches make it difficult for the SPD to speak with one voice about Europe, further contributing to the party’s dismal outlook ahead of the federal elections.
For more information, see the author’s accompanying paper in Ankara Review of European Studies.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: Cristi Dangeorge / Shutterstock.com
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