As a long-time foreign expert, Michael Roth is one of the SPD’s best-known faces. Now he surprisingly announced that he wants to leave politics after the 2025 federal election – and has become estranged from the SPD.
The SPD foreign expert Michael Roth has announced his exit from politics next year. “I’ll do it until the federal election. After that I’ll be out,” said the 53-year-old member of the Bundestag in an interview with Stern magazine. “I don’t have the bite anymore,” he said. “I feel an inner distance from the company. Now politics is over.”
Roth justified the decision with a creeping alienation from the party and politics. It was always clear to him that he did not want to retire as a member of parliament. The Hessian MP also referred to his growing distance from the SPD.
“I am a passionate social democrat and wanted to become chairman of the SPD,” said Roth. In the past year, however, he has increasingly started to “strange” the meetings and the mood in the committees is also bothering him. “When the door to the parliamentary group room opened, I had the impression that I was climbing into a refrigerator.”
Toughness in top politics
The SPD politician admitted that it was also true that he had strongly promoted his views in public, but had neglected to talk to colleagues. “In this respect, I also share responsibility for the alienation.”
The war in Ukraine further contributed to this, explained Roth. There are tensions in the SPD over the question of war and peace. “Not everyone liked my early commitment to Ukraine. And when I traveled to the country shortly after the outbreak of war, some in the group didn’t even greet me.”
Roth was sidelined for a few months in 2022 due to mental exhaustion. He referred to the tough nature of politics: “If you do top politics today, you almost have to give up completely.” He emphasized: “This is brutal. Today, top politicians simply have to survive every day.”
In the Bundestag since 1998
Roth has been a member of the Bundestag for the SPD since 1998. From 2013 to 2021 he was Minister of State for Europe in the Foreign Office, and from 2014 to 2021 he was also the Federal Government Commissioner for German-French Cooperation. Since 2021 he has been chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag.
Roth emphasized in a video on Platform At the time after the federal election he said: “I don’t know what’s coming yet.”