The head of the parliamentary group Matthias Miersch said at a national meeting on Saturday that Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) must prepare for painful compromises in the government.
The left-wing SPD, after former principal Olaf Scholz led the former German government, is now a junior partner to the Friedrich Merz administration, with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria.
Milch said the party faces a tough choice, highlighting the parliament’s vote to suspend the unity of immigration with limited protection status in Germany on Friday.
“It’s not easy for us. But it’s in the league agreement,” Milch of Berlin stressed.
He said the SPD base approved the agreement for most people and it must now be implemented. To this end, Milch said that party members need united party membership.
He also called for recognition of initial achievements in social policy, such as the braking of expanding rental prices and investment programmes by German companies.
“That’s why it’s important to keep balance,” Milch said.
Miersch’s speech was on the second day of the tripartite meeting.
Party co-leader Lars Klingbeil, who served as finance minister and vice-chancellor of the Meltz administration, was politically hit when he was re-elected on Friday to the highest party position, although less than 65% of the vote.
Among those who appeared on Saturday, Saskia Esken, a former co-leader of Klingbeil, was kicked out of the party after the election.
Esken said she was resigning “without the melancholy” and used her speech to thank former Prime Minister Scholz, who also attended the meeting.
Scholz promised that he could rely on his long term in office to cherish the party’s center values.
“I plan to be a former prime minister and SPD is always happy,” he said in his farewell speech at the conference.
Over the years, SPD has had a tough relationship with another former prime minister, Gerhard Schröder.
