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Germany's SPD leaders say focus on reforms not personnel changes after ...
SPD leaders emphasize delivering tax and social welfare reforms after consecutive electoral losses deepen party crisis and threaten coalition stability, with no internal challengers emerging yet.
- On March 23, 2026 at SPD headquarters in Berlin, Lars Klingbeil and Baerbel Bas said they will prioritize promised tax and social-welfare reforms over personnel changes after the Rhineland-Palatinate loss.
- The setback followed a March 8 defeat in Baden-Wuerttemberg that deepened a crisis since the 2024 coalition collapse led by Olaf Scholz, with party officials calling the situation too serious for 'self-lacerating' internal debates.
- A wider leadership forum will hold a 'hard debate' on responsibility, while Klingbeil said the leadership, SPD ministers, and state premiers will meet on Friday to discuss reforms.
- The CDU's state victory strengthened Chancellor Friedrich Merz and increased risks for the coalition, as this was the second of five state elections this year.
- Consecutive losses could force the SPD to recalibrate its reform strategy as state defeats and the broader crisis since 2024 reshape tax and welfare reforms amid pressure from SPD leadership and coalition partners in Merz's conservatives.
27 Articles
27 Articles
The SPD leaders exclude a resignation after the election debacle from Rhineland-Palatinate. In this crisis situation, the SPD should not be allowed to "self-defleshing". Instead, it applies: Now even more so.
SPD boss Klingbeil has already put away some bitter defeats. Nor do the two gossips in the state elections bring him down. He and Bas want to rehabilitate themselves in terms of content.
After the election defeat in Rhineland-Palatinate the wounds are licked at the SPD. The party leaders Bas and Klingbeil reject personnel debates and focus on reforms - with concrete ideas.
Bärbel Bas and Lars Klingbeil want to remain SPD chairman after the election debacle in Rhineland-Palatinate. "We will not now plunge the second largest ruling party into chaos," said Vice Chancellor Klingbeil in Berlin.In the party president's office, there was a clear opinion in the morning that "in the phase in which this country is currently facing the challenges that the country is facing, we do not want to determine the future by exchangin…
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