After the crisis meeting, SPD leaders Bärbel Bas and Lars Klingbeil remain in their posts, with no personnel changes announced.
Bas announced that the party will now focus on the economy and labour, particularly on actions to curb the high price of petrol. “Oil companies can’t be cheating us” she said. Klingbeil replied that the special session had received “a lot of support” for the proposals he’d outlined at the beginning of the week. These include adopting the so‑called “Luxembourg model” which caps gasoline prices several times a week, and a discussion on a “surplus‑profit tax”. He rejected an increase in VAT.
Earlier that Friday afternoon, the party’s presidency convened an expanded special session. Attendees were national ministers, state premiers, parliamentary group representatives, SPD top candidates and selected local‑level party officials.
The recent SPD crisis was triggered by the results of the March state elections in Baden‑Württemberg and Rhineland‑Palatinate. In the Stuttgart state parliament the party earned only 5.5 %, barely enough to enter. In Rhineland‑Palatinate, the SPD captured 25.9 %, still a respectable figure, but it lost almost ten percentage points, making it unlikely that the party will be able to present a state premier again in the future.
