With the German election fast approaching, the SPD is determined to shift the campaign focus from personalities to policy substance.

The SPD is likely to run a campaign focused on social inequalities and Obama-style campaigning as Angela Merkel’s popularity continues to soar.

If his party unites behind him, social democrat Peer Steinbrück will push Angela Merkel right to the wire in the 2013 German federal election.

Germany’s constitutional debt “brake” sets the context in which the SPD works to combine social democratic values and strict fiscal discipline.

In tough economic times, the SPD leadership appears wise to the dangers of reversing reforms on taxation and pensions

Nerves were raw and tensions were high following the swift break-up of coalition talks between the social democratic SPD and the Green party in the state of Berlin this month.

After yesterday’s state elections in Berlin, social democratic incumbent mayor Klaus Wowereit is celebrating a dull victory. Despite a positive national trend and high personality ratings for Wowereit, his party lost 2.5 percentage points, obtaining 28.3% of the vote. The hopes among the party’s left wing that the results could raise Wowereit’s chances of becoming the SPD’s candidate for chancellor in 2013 have not been fulfilled.

The debate doing the rounds in the German media is which social democratic frontrunner would do best in the 2013 federal elections. Fancied are former finance minister Peer Steinbrück and the head of the SPD parliamentary group Frank-Walter Steinmeier – with party chairman Sigmar Gabriel seen by many as to erratic for the job as chancellor.

The parties of the left in Europe were once vibrant institutions, attracting diverse membership and widely embedded in national life. Today as electoral support declines across the continent, it is also increasingly clear that the energy and élan which marked out party organisation is fast draining away.

The significant fall of Merkel’s CDU in Baden-Württemberg marked a resounding success for the Green party. How should the SPD respond to this political shift?

A strong economic platform delivered a resounding victory for the SPD’s Olaf Scholz in Hamburg. Desperately trying to win back frustrated voters from the left looks futile.

Michael Miebach im Gespräch mit Richard Wilkinson. In ihrem Buch »The Spirit Level« belegen die beiden britischen Epidemologen Richard Wilkinson und Kate Pickett empirisch, dass die sozialen Probleme einer Gesellschaft desto stärker zunehmen, je mehr die Kluft zwischen Arm und Reich wächst. Ihr eindringliches Plädoyer für mehr Gleichheit ist in Europa und den USA auf enorme Resonanz gestoßen.

Dass die westlichen Industrieländer angesichts der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise dringend ein neues Wachstumsmodell benötigen, darüber sind sich Progressive schnell einig. Aber wie diese Alternative genau aussehen könnte, diese Frage ist nach wie vor offen. Aus diesem Grund hatte der britische Think Tank „Policy Network“ – eine Partnerorganisation des Progressiven Zentrums – im Februar zu einer Tagung „Growth strategies after the crisis“ eingeladen.

In the current economic situation all European states are facing challenges that make reforms inevitable. Yet several issues – ageing societies, processes of globalization, the transition from industrial to knowledge economies, energy scarcity and climate change among them- have pointed to the urgent need for thorough reforms of the social and economic systems well before the worsening of the economic crisis in September 2008.