“Change through rapprochement” is the motto under which SPD chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt are initiating a policy of détente towards the Warsaw Pact states. The legacy of Ostpolitik became a burden for the party at the latest after Russia’s attack on Ukraine. SPD leader Klingbeil admits mistakes and calls for a realignment.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has admitted several misjudgments by his party in Russia policy over the past few decades. “In our search for common ground, we often overlooked what separated us. That was a mistake,” said Klingbeil in a speech at a party event in Berlin. After the end of the Cold War, the SPD believed that relations with Russia would simply keep getting better. “This has created blind spots in our dealings with Russia. And that has led to mistakes in dealing with Russia.”
Klingbeil advocated a fundamental change in attitude towards Russia. The statement that security and stability in Europe can only exist with and not against Russia is no longer valid. “Today it’s about organizing security against Russia,” said the SPD leader. “Russia has left the system of common security and common values. Our security must function without Russia.”
The SPD’s earlier Russia policy had been sharply criticized in recent months. In the party’s 2007 basic program, which is still valid, the strategic partnership with Russia is described as “indispensable” for Germany and the European Union. “The opening of Russia will ensure peace and stability on our continent,” it says. The SPD’s election manifesto for 2021 includes the sentence: “Peace in Europe cannot exist against, but only with, Russia.”
The SPD wants to reorganize its foreign and security policy at its party congress at the end of 2023. The party’s international policy commission is currently working on proposals for this. In his speech, Klingbeil specifically named four misjudgments made by the SPD in the period after the end of the Cold War:
There are certainly other mistakes that have been made, said Klingbeil. It is important to him to name them and to draw the right lessons for the future from them. The SPD leader emphasized that he cannot imagine normalizing relations with Russia in the long term. “There cannot and will not be a return to the status quo with Russia before the war against Ukraine.”
