Europe

Martin Schulz appointed SPD leader to challenge Angela Merkel

Former European Parliament president succeeds Sigmar Gabriel after resignation

The new leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Martin Schulz smiles next to his predecessor, Sigmar Gabriel, at a party meeting in the Bundestag on Wednesday. Photograph: Felipe Trueba/EPA

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Derek Scally
Wed Jan 25 2017 - 17:00

With desperate euphoria, Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) have embraced Martin Schulz as political saviour, designated leader and challenger to chancellor Angela Merkel in September’s federal election.

Mr Schulz, a long-serving EU politician, made his domestic debut to a standing ovation in the SPD’s parliamentary party room on Wednesday in Berlin. One level below the Reichstag’s glazed dome and weak winter light, Mr Schulz brought a ray of hope to Germany’s oldest political party with his promise of a back-to-the-roots, social justice election campaign.

“When we Social Democrats show people that we are thinking of them, then we will win the election,” said Mr Schulz, an MEP since 1994 and president of the European Parliament for the past five years.

With just eight months to polling day, however, the 61-year-old has a mammoth task ahead. Riven by infighting and enfeebled by a 15-year-old identity crisis, the SPD is flatlining in polls at historic lows of about 20 per cent.

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After supporting centre-right rival Angela Merkel for two of her three terms in power, failing to address the party’s deep-rooted malaise could doom Mr Schulz and his SPD to another, thankless cohabitation with her Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Future coalition

Emerging from his first parliamentary party meeting, the designated SPD leader declined to be drawn on whether he favoured another grand coalition with Dr Merkel, or an untested three-way alliance with the Greens and the Left Party.

“The SPD is running to lead this country. We want to propose the chancellor, in whatever constellation,” he said.

After years of centrist economic and social reforms, the opposition Left Party said it was “still unclear” whether Martin Schulz would be a figure of change to shift his party to the left.

Ahead of a keynote address on Sunday, Mr Schulz promised to listen to people’s concerns and “defend democracy” from growing threats.

A day after the shock resignation of SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, senior party figures were back on message on Wednesday, turning Mr Schulz’s perceived weaknesses into strengths.

Critics point to his domestic political experience – limited to regular talk show appearances and a spell as a mayor 25 years ago. Mr Schulz and SPD officials turned that on its head, presenting him as someone who understands voter concerns and grassroots politics. His two decades in European politics, they suggested, make him a fresh political force, untouched by Berlin’s grand coalition politics.

“Many people are turning away from Merkel and are asking what the SPD has on offer,” said Manuela Schwesig, SPD deputy leader. “Martin Schulz stands for the European idea and solidarity, I think he can reach people’s hearts because he stands for a new start and has a high level of credibility.”

Wild card

Over at Dr Merkel’s CDU, officials conceded Mr Schulz was a wild card, but insisted he would go the way of the last four SPD men who tried – and failed – to beat their leader.

Deputy finance minister Jens Spahn, a rising CDU star, was confident that, in uncertain times, voters would “see they have an experienced leader” in Angela Merkel.

Seasoned political observers are keeping an open mind on Mr Schulz’s chances, but agree he will liven up the looming campaign.

Born into a mining family in the small western town of Würselen, his hopes of a football career segued into a career as a bookseller, a low point as an alcoholic and a subsequent two decades as a teetotaller MEP.

Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz are known to respect, if not particularly like, each other. For years he has amused and frustrated her by elbowing himself – and the European Parliament – to the top table at Brussels summits.

Tea and cake

Mr Schulz, meanwhile, respects Dr Merkel’s instinct for power but is not beyond mocking her attempts, whenever she needed his support in the parliament, to plámás him with tea and plum cake.

“Though he’s never had executive power . . . Schulz is more of a fighter with the common touch,” said Prof Jürgen Falter, a political scientist at the University of Mainz, “so I think Angela Merkel will have to take him seriously as a campaigner.”

The unpopular outgoing SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel threw in the towel on Tuesday, describing himself as more liability than asset in the looming election.

But Mr Gabriel isn’t disappearing – yet – from Berlin’s political stage. He hopes to switch from economics to the foreign ministry when the incumbent, Frank Walter Steinmeier, becomes president next month.

Given Mr Gabriel’s mercurial reputation, some have questioned his suitability as Germany’s chief diplomat given delicate relations with Moscow and Washington.

“He’s not a born diplomat, more a bull in a china shop,” said Daniel Friedrich Sturm, a Berlin journalist and Gabriel biographer. “But with the rise of Trump and the right-ring populism in Europe, everything is being mixed up anyway.”