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Dual leadership
Renewed candidacy for SPD chairmanship – Klingbeil and Esken want to know again
The SPD party leaders Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken
© Bernd Elmenthaler/Geisler-Fotopr/ / Picture Alliance
The previous chairman duo wants to run again: After star-Information Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken have announced internally that they want to run as SPD dual leaders again.
Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken want to compete again Run for SPD party leadership. After star-Information Klingbeil, 45, and Esken, 62, announced at the meeting of the party executive committee on Monday that they wanted to run again as dual leaders at the federal party conference at the beginning of December.
Esken has been one of the two federal chairmen since 2019, and Klingbeil was elected co-chairman in 2021. The federal party conference will take place in Berlin from December 8th to 10th.
“We position ourselves as the SPD”
The SPD leadership recently presented a new modernization agenda (the star reported), which provides for a higher burden on top earners and a reform of the debt brake. So that should Additional investments of around 100 billion euros will be financed annually and one million new jobs will be created by 2030.
“We position ourselves as SPDpresent a plan for how we imagine the future of the country“, said SPD co-leader Klingbeil in an interview with star. “Much more” money needs to be mobilized “in order to be able to cope with the upheavals”. Furthermore, it is “only fair” if “millionaires and mega-heirs” also contribute more.
In its lead proposal for the federal party conference, the SPD leadership is calling for a “fundamental income tax reform” from which the majority of taxpayers (“around 95 percent”) should benefit. Top earners are supposed to finance the relief by “those who are subject to rich tax, additionally contributing a temporary crisis levy.” The inheritance and gift tax should also be reformed so that “multimillionaires and billionaires contribute more to the common good.” The SPD wants to continue the solidarity surcharge, which must be paid by higher income classes, and “re-establish it as a future tax”. The specific amount of taxes for top earners and the super-rich is not quantified in detail in the paper.
The paper also calls for a reform of the debt brake, as “in its current form” it represents a “location and prosperity risk” for Germany and slows down necessary investments. “We want to change the debt rules,” they say, which is why they continue to campaign for a change to the Basic Law. “In the short term, we will modernize the debt brake, focus it more on investments and make it fairer for future generations.” The Social Democrats are proposing a reform of the economic component, which would make the debt scope dependent on investments in the productive capacity of the economy. For the planned investments, the SPD wants to set up a “Germany Fund”, which will be fed by government borrowings via the capital market and private capital from investors.
The money should be invested in particular in education and the transformation towards a climate-neutral economy.