Matthias Miersch: SPD chooses General Secretary for the group leader

The previous SPD general secretary Matthias Miersch will lead the SPD parliamentary group in the future. The 56-year-old was elected as the new chairman in the morning with more than 80 percent, as the German press agency learned from parliamentary group circles.

The SPD link Miersch is considered a close confidante of party leader and vice-chancellor Lars Klingbeil. This had agreed with the three currents of the SPD to propose Miersch for the top post. In the election, the Lower Saxony received 99 out of 119 votes, 18 MPs voted no, 2 abstained. Miersch was a slightly worse result than his predecessor Klingbeil, who had reached the parliamentary group in February after the SPD debacle in the Bundestag election.

In the interaction of the new black and red coalition, the group leaders are likely to take key positions. Not only will Miersch try to secure the Vice Chancellor in the next few years the backing of the SPD parliamentary group. He wanted to fill the social democratic handwriting of the coalition agreement with life and translate it into good, fair legislation, said the Lower Saxony.

Miersch will also have to negotiate many of the topics with Union faction leader Jens Spahn, who were deliberately opened in the coalition agreement. In German parliamentary history there are almost legendary teams such as Volker Kauder (CDU) and Peter Struck (SPD), who undercut the coalition shop under Chancellor Merkel and even became friends. However, Spahn has been critically viewed in the SPD parliamentary group, at the latest since its controversial advance to deal with the AfD on organizational issues in the Bundestag as with other opposition parties.

Miersch wants to give up his office as Secretary General of the Party – not immediately, but at the latest to the party congress at the end of June. Miersch assured the employees at the party headquarters, the Willy-Brandt-Haus, in a letter that he would continue to perform the most important tasks “until my successor is regulated”.

As Secretary General, the 56-year-old is also responsible for how the SPD processes its disastrous defeat in the federal election. The party leadership is to be elected at a party congress at the end of June. Klingbeil is expected to run again as chairman. The future of co-party leader Saskia Esken, on the other hand, is open.

Miersch is one of the most famous SPD links. For years he was one of the spokesman for the parliamentary left, i.e. the left wing of the SPD parliamentary group-until he became general secretary in October 2024 after Kevin Kühnert’s surprising resignation.

Miersch is a lawyer, but has so far worked politically primarily in the areas of environment and climate protection. Among other things, he was responsible for these topics as deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group from 2017 to 2024. In the traffic light government, he negotiated the controversial heating law with the Greens and the FDP and collected ideas from his party for a better industrial policy-to save jobs and for favorable industrial flow.

However, Miersch has made no secret of the fact that he would like to be the leader of the parliamentary group in recent years, but he pulled the shorter one several times. In the parliamentary group, it is estimated across wings.