“Finally get out the door” – CDU wing calls for Schröder to be excluded from the SPD

The CDU is making a loud appeal to the SPD after ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was expelled from the party. Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed him to his home on his birthday.

In the SPD, even critics of Schröder express skepticism with regard to a possible new attempt at a party regulatory process.

The CDU social wing called on the SPD to throw Schröder out of the party. "The SPD should finally clarify the Schröder case for itself and finally put him out the door," CDA boss Dennis Radtke told the "Tagesspiegel": "A former Chancellor who is supposedly too sick to attend an investigative committee, but celebrates his birthday with Putin and starts a new part-time job in Russia, is a disgrace for our country. How can you still defend this case of moral insolvency as the SPD?"

“As far as a new party exclusion procedure is concerned, I am skeptical after all previous attempts have failed,” said Ulf Kampf, chairman of the SPD Schleswig-Holstein, to the “Tagesspiegel”. “Whether with or without a party register: the paths of the SPD and Gerhard Schröder parted ways many years ago.”

The SPD certainly doesn't need advice from other parties on this, said Kampfer, who is Kiel's mayor and the SPD's top candidate for the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein. Schröder's visit to Vladimir Putin's birthday party was "not to be surpassed in terms of cynicism, but also not surprising." Schröder has been living “in his own world for a long time”.

The SPD co-chairs of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, Robin Mesarosch and Sebastian Roloff, had previously suggested that Schröder should be expelled from the party in the “Tagesspiegel”. The SPD district of Upper Palatinate unanimously voted in favor of it at a party conference on Saturday.

“Maximally disturbing”

The chairman of the SPD local association in Leutenbach, Baden, Pierre Orthen, was also skeptical. His local association unsuccessfully initiated regulatory proceedings against Schröder in 2022. “We are currently not planning a new party regulatory procedure because we currently assume that Gerhard Schröder’s visit unfortunately cannot be sanctioned in this way,” Orthen told the “Tagesspiegel”. Morally, Schröder’s behavior was “maximally disturbing.”

Orthen criticized the SPD foreign politician Ralf Stegner, who had praised Schröder's visit to Putin. “Since Schröder’s private trip and the associated impact on the federal government’s foreign policy position have been repeatedly put into perspective or even positively assessed by Ralf Stegner, I think a critical examination of these statements is appropriate,” he said. The question arises "to what extent this attitude does justice to the special responsibility as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee".