Image copyright AFP Image caption Martin Schulz said his resignation could help the SPD renew itself

The head of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Martin Schulz, has resigned to ease preparations for a coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.

Mr Schulz said he was handing over to a left-winger, Andrea Nahles, with immediate effect. However, SPD members have to vote on the change on 22 April.

SPD sources say Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz will be interim leader.

Martin Schulz stepped down saying he wanted to end SPD "personnel debates".

The SPD has agreed on a blueprint for coalition government with Ms Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and her Bavarian CSU allies.

SPD members will vote on the coalition deal next month - the result is expected on 4 March.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Andrea Nahles is a former labour minister who once headed the SPD youth wing

The centre-left SPD is on course to run six ministries, including finance and foreign affairs.

Mr Schulz, formerly European Parliament president, has said he will not serve as foreign minister. He has faced strong criticism inside the SPD.

Read more on this subject:

There has been more than four months of coalition negotiations - a German post-war record - since inconclusive elections in September.

A breakthrough was finally announced last week, with major concessions given to the SPD.

Many in the SPD fear that re-entering a coalition with the CDU/CSU could damage the party in the long term.

The SPD and CDU both had their worst results for decades in the election, which catapulted the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) into parliament for the first time, with 94 seats.</s>BERLIN (AP) — Germany's Social Democrats name Olaf Scholz, party deputy and Hamburg mayor, to be interim leader.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>BERLIN (AP) - Germany's Social Democrats have chosen deputy leader and Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz as the new interim head of the party until a permanent chairman can be elected in April.

The move follows leader Martin Schulz's announcement Tuesday that he was stepping down from the position with hopes of putting an end to turmoil at the top of the center-left party.

The party leadership also nominated parliamentary caucus leader Andrea Nahles as its candidate for Schulz's permanent replacement, to stand in a vote at a special party congress on April 22. Scholz is also supporting Nahles.

The Social Democrats' leadership issue has been a major distraction ahead of a party vote to approve a new coalition government agreement with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc.</s>Martin Schulz has quit as chairman of Germany's Social Democrats with immediate effect, saying it is time for a "renewal" of the centre-left party.

The move came after he on Friday abandoned his plan to become the country's foreign minister in a new coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, following pressure from within the party.

He told reporters the party's leadership had unanimously nominated his choice for a successor, parliamentary caucus leader Andrea Nahles.

She will have to be approved by a party congress on April 22, he said.

The turmoil at the top of the Social Democrats has been a major distraction as its leaders have been lobbying for the party to approve the new coalition agreement with Mrs Merkel's conservative bloc.

It is being put to a ballot of the Social Democrats' 460,000 members.

If members reject the coalition, Mrs Merkel's only realistic options would be to form a minority government or seek fresh elections.

Mr Schulz said the coalition agreement was "70%" Social Democratic policy and urged party members to bring "the personnel debate to an end" with his resignation and concentrate on passing the deal.

"This is a good agreement," he said.

The party chose deputy leader and Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz as the new interim head until a permanent chairman is elected in April.

Mr Scholz will support Ms Nahles at the party congress.</s>German Social Democratic Party leader Martin Schulz announced Tuesday he would quit as chairman of the political group, but because of party infighting his designated successor Andrea Nahles must wait to take the reins.

"The SPD needs renewal in its organisation, in its personnel, and in its programme," Schulz said as he announced his departure.

Schulz’s resignation was expected after he abandoned plans on Friday to take the post of foreign minister in a renewed coalition government with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives. Party members were outraged by his stated ambition for the role, despite his having previously vowed never to serve in a cabinet led by Merkel.

Nahles is facing similar opposition in her path to leadership.

Disgruntled party members say that she was chosen in an elitist backroom deal rather than through an open party vote.

Steve Hudson, a member of the party's #NoGroKo group (which stands for ‘no grand coalition’), stated that the leadership's single candidate proposal evoked North Korean politics. He added that the party "doesn't belong to a small group of top functionaries in Berlin who can do what they want".

The SPD leadership crisis comes only a week before 460,000 party members vote on the coalition deal with Merkel’s conservative bloc. Schulz urged voters to bring "the personnel debate to an end" with his resignation and concentrate on passing the deal.

In the meantime, deputy leader and Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz has been chosen as the interim head of the party.

If she is elected at a special party congress on April 22, Nahles would become the first woman to lead the 153-year-old party.

"I would dearly like to take up the responsibility that I've been offered" in service to party and country, Nahles later told journalists.

The 47-year-old former labour minister is known for her blunt and passionate manner, including a fiery speech at a special party conference in January that was credited with swinging support towards a coalition agreement. But it has got her into trouble in the past, and she has faced criticism for her gutter politics.

Challenging Nahles for the top job will be last-minute candidate Simone Lange, the 41-year-old mayor of northern city Flensburg.

Germany's second-biggest party has been torn by bitter infighting and is deeply demoralised since it scored its worst post-war election result of 20.5 percent last September.

Its left and youth wings and some regional chapters are in open revolt against SPD plans to again govern as junior partner to Merkel.

With Schulz’s political career in tatters, Nahles looks set to claim the poisoned chalice of reviving the spirit and electoral prospects of the party.

A poll in Bild daily said support for the SPD had sunk to a record low of 16.5 percent, only 1.5 percentage points ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Nahles’ election would mean that, along with Merkel, women will head both of Germany's two big mainstream parties a move hailed by Mona Kueppers, who heads the National Council of German Women's Organisations.

"Within the SPD, too, the time is ripe for a female leader," Kueppers told AFP. "The fact that the party has competent women for the job has been well known for a long time."

The upcoming vote on the coalition deal represents the final step before Merkel can serve a fourth term.

If members reject the coalition, Merkel's only realistic options would be to form a minority government or seek fresh elections.</s>BERLIN: German Social Democrat leader (SPD) Martin Schulz stepped down with immediate effect on Tuesday, hoping to put an end to the turbulence that has rocked the centre-left party since it agreed a coalition deal with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.

Schulz's deputy Olaf Scholz - the Hamburg mayor who is slated to become finance minister in the new government - said he would become caretaker SPD leader, and the party confirmed that it had recommended parliamentary floor leader Andrea Nahles as Schulz's longer-term successor.

Deeply divided over the coalition deal and the distribution of ministerial posts, and facing a slump in opinion polls, SPD leaders are trying to convince 464,000 party members to back the accord with Merkel in a ballot on which her fourth term depends.

With many SPD rank-and-file members harbouring misgivings about sharing power with Merkel again, the result of the vote, due on March 4, is wide open. If members reject the coalition deal, a new German election looks the most likely option.

Schulz said an extraordinary party congress would be held in the western city of Wiesbaden on April 22 to pick the SPD's new leader.

Nahles, a plain-speaking 47-year-old former labour minister with a left-wing slant and strong oratory skills, is frontrunner and would become the first female leader in the party's 154-year history.

Schulz said last week he would quit to allow the party to regroup and he recommended Nahles as leader but expectations that she would take over with immediate effect on a caretaker basis until a party conference triggered resistance as it breaches party procedure.

In a cartoon on Tuesday, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily showed Nahles with a whip riding an SPD snail.

Schulz ditched plans to take the post of foreign minister after fierce criticism from some former allies, not least because he had vowed not to serve in a cabinet with Merkel.

That leaves open who from within the SPD may take up that post. Media have speculated that one option might be Katarina Barley, a former SPD general secretary and family minister, or SPD veteran Thomas Oppermann.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has been without a formal government since the Sept. 24 election and investors are worried about a delay in policymaking, both at home and in Europe.

The turmoil in the SPD can only distract from criticism of Merkel from within her own party after she handed the foreign and finance ministries to the SPD to secure the coalition deal.

An INSA poll published on Tuesday showed the SPD at a record low of 16.5 percent, only 1.5 percentage points ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Merkel's conservative bloc was also down 1 point at 29.5 percent.</s>German Social Democratic leader (SPD) Martin Schulz resigned on Tuesday, hoping to end turbulence that has rocked the centre-left party since it agreed a coalition deal with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

Schulz’s deputy Olaf Scholz – the Hamburg mayor who is slated to become finance minister in the new government – said he would become caretaker SPD chairman, and the party confirmed that it had recommended parliamentary floor leader Andrea Nahles as Schulz’s longer-term successor.

Amid deep rank-and-file divisions over the coalition deal and the distribution of ministerial posts, and facing a slump in opinion polls, SPD leaders are trying to convince 464,000 party members to endorse the accord with Merkel in a ballot on which her fourth term depends.

With many SPD members harbouring misgivings about sharing power with Merkel again, the result of the vote, due on March 4, is wide open. If members reject the coalition pact, a new German election looks the most likely option.

Schulz said an extraordinary party congress would be held in the western city of Wiesbaden on April 22 to pick a new leader.

Nahles, a plain-speaking 47-year-old former labour minister with a left-wing slant and strong oratory skills, is the frontrunner and would become the first female leader in the party’s 154-year history.

“With his decision to resign today, (Schulz) paved the way for a new beginning,” Nahles said.

Schulz said last week he would quit to allow the party to regroup and he recommended Nahles as leader. But expectations that she would take over with immediate effect on a caretaker basis until a party conference triggered resistance as it breached party procedure.

On Tuesday, Schulz said he hoped his decision to resign would result in party members focusing on the coalition treaty rather than personnel issues.

He said he hoped the party could “regain its former strength” under Nahles’ leadership and as part of the German government – if members agreed to that in the upcoming ballot.

“If I can contribute to that by resigning, it will have been worth it,” he said outside the SPD headquarters.

Two sources in the SPD leadership said the party decided not to make Nahles a caretaker leader because it did not want to pre-empt a vote at the party congress and so possibly influence the members’ vote on a coalition with Merkel.

YES OR NO?

Kevin Kuehnert, who leads the SPD’s youth wing and is campaigning for members to vote against another tie-up with Merkel, welcomed the decision as he said it would enable the party to focus completely on the members’ coalition ballot.

Nahles said she would start campaigning at the weekend for members to vote “yes” to a coalition with Merkel, who has led the European Union’s most populous country and economic powerhouse since 2005.

In a cartoon on Tuesday, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily showed Nahles with a whip riding an SPD snail.

Schulz, 62, ditched plans to take the post of foreign minister after fierce criticism from some former allies, not least because he had pledged not to serve in a cabinet with Merkel.

That leaves open who from within the SPD may take up that post. Media have speculated that one option might be Katarina Barley, a former SPD general secretary and family minister, or SPD veteran Thomas Oppermann.

Germany has been without a formal government since the Sept. 24 election and investors are worried about a delay in policymaking, both at home and in the EU.

The turmoil in the SPD can only distract from criticism of Merkel from within her own party after she handed the foreign and finance ministries to the SPD to secure the coalition deal.

An INSA poll published on Tuesday showed the SPD at a record low of 16.5 percent, only 1.5 percentage points ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Merkel’s conservative bloc was also down 1 point at 29.5 percent.

Under Schulz, a former European Parliament president who became SPD leader just over a year ago, the party garnered 20.5 percent in September’s election, its worst result in the post-war era.

The SPD originally wanted to reinvent itself in opposition but reconsidered when Merkel’s attempt to form an alliance with two smaller parties failed late last year.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>VILSHOFEN, Germany, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) must seize the opportunity to reform the European Union in a new governing alliance with Chancellor Angela Merkel, the party's interim leader said on Wednesday in appealing to members to back their coalition deal.

The SPD's 464,000 members vote in a postal ballot beginning on Feb. 20 on whether the party should go ahead with the agreement its leaders clinched last week to renew their power sharing alliance with Merkel's conservative bloc.

Olaf Scholz, appointed SPD interim leader on Tuesday, said EU reform plans included in the coalition agreement were a strong reason to back the deal.

"The window of opportunity is now, not in five or 10 years - maybe then it won't be there any more," he told party members gathered in a beer tent in Vilshofen, in the southern state of Bavaria. "We need to act now."

The coalition deal envisages stronger Franco-German cooperation, allocating budget funds for economic stabilisation in Europe, increased German contributions to the EU budget, and transforming the ESM bailout fund into a European Monetary Fund.

But EU reform, which has moved up the agenda with Britain poised to leave the bloc next year, is an issue that fails to resonate with many party members who are more concerned with jobs and working conditions.

SPD leaders, facing a slump in opinion polls, have their work cut out to convince rank-and-file to endorse the coalition deal with Merkel, a re-run of the power-sharing arrangement they began in 2013.

Many within the SPD harbour misgivings about sharing power with Merkel, believing the party should rebuild in opposition after suffering its worst result in last September's election since Germany became a federal republic in 1949.

Results of the SPD ballot are due on March 4. A "no" vote would likely lead to new elections, prolonging uncertainty in Europe's most populous country and economic powerhouse.

The SPD has slid into disarray since its leaders struck the coalition deal last week, blighted by bitter divisions over whether to join the coalition, a loss of confidence in outgoing leader Martin Schulz and discontent over the succession process.

Seeking to restore order, Schulz resigned with immediate effect on Tuesday and party leaders installed Scholz as caretaker SPD chairman. They also confirmed that they recommended parliamentary floor leader Andrea Nahles as Schulz's longer-term successor.

The manner in which Schulz originally anointed Nahles as his successor - without broad consultation - rankled with many in the party and resulted in Scholz being appointed as interim leader on Tuesday.

An extraordinary party congress will be held on April 22 to pick a new leader, likely Nahles.

Scholz played up the SPD's achievements in coalition negotiations with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and her Bavarian allies, at which the centre-left party won the powerful finance ministry to the frustration of many in the CDU.

"One has only to look at the discussion in the CDU to know that we must have got it right somehow," said Scholz.

"Not only has a Bavarian politician passed the pinnacle of his career, but probably a woman from the north too," he added in a dig at Merkel and Horst Seehofer, leader of the arch-conservative Bavarian sister party (CSU) to Merkel's CDU. (Writing by Paul Carrel; editing by Mark Heinrich)</s>German Social Democrat leader (SPD) Martin Schulz stepped down with immediate effect on Tuesday and said the party's committee had backed parliamentary floor leader Andrea Nahles as his successor.

BERLIN: German Social Democrat leader (SPD) Martin Schulz stepped down with immediate effect on Tuesday and said the party's committee had backed parliamentary floor leader Andrea Nahles as his successor.

Nahles still needs to be formally nominated by the party executive, which is meeting on Tuesday evening. A vote will then take place at an extraordinary party congress on April 22.

The move comes ahead of a ballot of the SPD's 464,000 members, who get the chance to veto a coalition deal agreed last week with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives.

The SPD is split over the coalition deal and the division of ministerial posts. Schulz said after the deal was announced that he would step down following the members' vote - the results of which are due to be announced on March 4 - to take the job of foreign minister, but later dropped that plan amid controversy.</s>Germany’s two largest parties are trying to improve the survival chances of the country’s next government by injecting their frontbenches with fresh blood before they formally enter a new “grand coalition”.

Outgoing Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz, who had last Friday surprised many by abandoning his ambition to become foreign minister, is set to hand over the leadership of the SPD on Tuesday to 47-year-old Andrea Nahles – the second-youngest person and first-ever woman in the 155-year history of the German centre-left.



If Nahles, a former leader of the JuSos youth wing with a talent for powerful and at times brash political oratory, is installed at the helm of the SPD in a caretaker role, five out of six party groups in the German parliament will have female leaders.

Germany’s most prominent female politician, meanwhile, is herself under pressure to reshuffle her party’s ageing personnel in coming weeks. In a TV interview on Sunday evening Angela Merkel vowed to stay on as chancellor for the full four-year term and defended herself against criticism for conceding the influential finance ministry to the Social Democrats.

But Merkel also announced that she would confirm the names of new CDU ministers before a party summit on 26 February, and hinted that the provisional distribution of portfolios could be revised to pave a career path for her eventual successor.

“Of course the list will draw from party’s entire spectrum,” Merkel told public broadcaster ZDF in the interview. “That includes youth and experience. We don’t want to consider only the over-60s.”

Since reaching a coalition agreement with Schulz’s team last Wednesday, Merkel has faced increasingly vocal criticism from the ranks of a Christian Democratic Union previously famed for its message discipline.

Former deputy finance minister Jens Spahn, a leading figure on the rightwing of the CDU, who was not included in a leaked list of designated future ministers, told Austrian newspaper Die Presse am Sonntag that he knew “plenty of good people” who could take over when the Merkel era came to an end. “We don’t live in a monarchy where you can arrange your own successor,” the 37-year-old said. “When the time comes, candidates will have to assert themselves.”

CDU politician Roland Koch, a former premier for the state of Hesse, also appealed to Merkel to pave the way for a new generation of conservative politicians, naming Spahn and the more liberal-leaning Schleswig-Holstein state premier Daniel Günther as candidates.

In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Koch openly questioned the longevity of the next government: “I don’t see or hear anyone voicing the hope that this coalition deal formulates a future-facing political agenda. It expresses the commonalities of two partners without a joint agenda.”

Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats managed to reach a coalition agreement after the chancellor’s attempt to forge an unorthodox “Jamaica” coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the Green party collapsed last December.

The coalition deal has yet to be approved by the SPD’s approximately 460,000 members, whose verdict will be announced on 4 March. After the Social Democrats’ worst result in the postwar era at last September’s national poll, many members believe that the party should reinvent itself in opposition rather than seek a new term in government as Merkel’s junior coalition partner.

There are also concerns that a renewed grand coalition could provide a further boost to the German far right, with rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland set to become the biggest opposition group in the next Bundestag.

Unlike Merkel’s party, senior figures in the SPD want to hold off any further debate about the next cabinet’s personnel until after their membership vote. “For now we want to convince the SPD’s members to vote in favour of accepting the coalition agreement,” said Hamburg’s mayor, Olaf Scholz, who has been mooted as a contender for the finance ministry post.
Martin Schulz resigns as leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) with immediate effect. The mayor of Hamburg Olaf Scholz will serve as interim leader until a new leader is elected.