SPD party conference in Berlin: What will be important? What could cause trouble?

After 50 days of governing with the CDU/CSU, the SPD is taking a special kind of break: It will convene for three days starting Friday in Berlin for a federal party conference. What's important:

The SPD may be back in power, but in the federal election, it achieved its worst result ever with 16.4 percent – ​​and the trend has been steadily declining in recent years. Now, the crisis is supposed to become a "turning point" – with at least some new leadership, different communication, and new priorities. "Change begins with us," is the ambiguously stated motto of the party conference: The SPD should reform itself. And it should present itself as the force that initiates important innovations.

The party conference begins on Friday afternoon – the SPD hopes that the Bundestag plenary session will be over by then. However, a motion by the Left Party to hold a vote in the Bundestag on restricting family reunification for refugees entitled to subsidiary protection could delay the plenary session.

After a welcoming address by DGB President Yasmin Fahimi, the meeting will begin with a discussion of the party leadership's key motion – a time when frustration over the election results can surface. It would be fitting for representatives of the foreign policy "manifesto" to speak out, criticizing the party's security policy as overly militaristic. The election of the new party leadership will follow.

The RND newsletter from the government district. Every Thursday.

By subscribing to the newsletter I agree to the advertising agreement .

On Saturday, the party will bid farewell to Olaf Scholz as chancellor and the then-current party leader, Saskia Esken. Following the debate, topics include Israel policy. For the first time, delegates can also vote on which topic they want to focus on. The party leadership is determined to address the rescue of the steel industry.

On Sunday, the debate on a ban on the AfD is scheduled.

There could be heated debates regarding foreign and security policy . Former parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, former party leader Norbert Walter-Borjans, former deputy party leader Ralf Stegner, and other party figures argued in a "manifesto" that there was too much rearmament and too little diplomacy. This caused anger in advance. The main criticism was that the document only briefly addressed Russia's lack of willingness to negotiate, while instead searching the West's behavior for reasons for Russian aggression in a more comprehensive manner. However, the authors of the manifesto did not formulate a motion. Secretary General Tim Klüssendorf attempted to convey that certain priorities could certainly be set differently in communication.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) irritated parts of his party when he announced a few days ago that his new military service law would already contain mandatory elements that could be invoked if the Bundeswehr fails to find enough volunteers to recruit new members. The Young Socialists (Jusos) warned in a motion against this automaticity. A parliamentary reservation for conscription may be the compromise.

There could also be debates about the SPD's positioning : Klingbeil has declared that he will not move the SPD to the left. Others believe the SPD should define itself as a "left-wing people's party."

The minimum wage could also become an issue—especially if the Minimum Wage Commission announces an increase on Friday that is significantly below the €15 demanded by the SPD. SPD leader Lars Klingbeil is likely to be reminded of his announcement that he would intervene by law in such a case. However, this would also require the approval of the CDU/CSU.

The Jusos, among others, pushed for an AfD ban. Now the party executive has taken up this issue and formulated its own motion. It states: "The evidence of the AfD's unconstitutionality is overwhelming – documented in many ways and attributable to the party." The party is "an enemy of parliamentary democracy." Therefore, the conditions for a ban on the AfD must now be created – through the systematic collection of evidence by a working group of the federal and state governments.

The SPD party conference is likely to approve this, but the party cannot act alone. Whether the CDU/CSU will follow suit remains to be seen.

The results of the party leadership elections will be interesting. Labor Minister Bärbel Bas and—for the third time—Lars Klingbeil, now Finance Minister, are running for the position. A rather mixed result is expected for Klingbeil: As party leader, he was at least unable to noticeably halt the party's decline. Some within the party are also critical of the 47-year-old's sense of power: After the election, he quickly assumed the parliamentary group chairmanship, which laid the foundation for his rise to Vice Chancellor. Some may feel sidelined.

Bas, 57, who will replace Saskia Esken as the representative of the party's left wing, is likely to achieve a better result in her first election as co-chair. There are currently no opposing candidates.

600 delegates are eligible to vote at the party conference. According to the SPD, the events in the Berlin exhibition hall will be illuminated by 136 LED spotlights and 12 kilometers of fiber optic cables. 140 technicians, stage designers, and booth builders will be on hand for setup and dismantling.

The SPD's motion book is 542 pages long; several hundred motions were submitted by the federal executive board, state associations, district associations, and working groups by the April deadline. Many proposals are recommended by the motion committee for referral to the party executive board—such as the closure of SPD accounts on Elon Musk's short message service X (formerly Twitter)—or to the parliamentary group in the Bundestag—such as a one-day general right to camp freely in nature. Among the motions recommended for adoption are the demand to allow gasoline price increases only once a day, as in Austria, to provide free testicular cancer screening for those aged 16 and over, to establish mandatory compensatory time off for blood donors, and to require official permission for the purchase of blank-firing pistols. And mandatory neutering for domestic cats.