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'The Worst Possible Thing for the SPD'

Germany's Social Democrats have again stumbled into a crisis. A party arbitration committee on Thursday voted to throw SPD veteran Wolfgang Clement out of the party. But German commentators say he's a scapegoat for larger SPD woes.

Germany's Social Democrats had been hoping for peace and quiet this summer, maybe some time to lick their wounds. The party spent the first half of 2008 stumbling from crisis to crisis, and poll numbers plunged. Internal bickering landed the SPD in the headlines week after week. A tranquil summer vacation would have been the right antidote.

On Thursday, though, the quiet came to a screeching halt. A party arbitration commission in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia announced its verdict in the case of Wolfgang Clement, a former economy minister and prominent representative of the party's conservative wing. The commission said he has shown a lack of loyalty to his party and decided to throw him out.

The decision hit Berlin's political world like a bomb. An earlier commission dealing with his case had recommended a reprimand. No one in party headquarters expected him to be booted. Indeed, despite a hurried agreement to avoid comment until a higher committee could decide whether to overturn the decision, shock and frustration seeped out. None other than Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, not known to be one of Clement's strongest supporters, criticized the decision on Thursday.

"I am happy that in the SPD there are a number of opinions represented -- from Wolfgang Clement to Erhard Eppler," he said, referring to the party's left-wing idol. "That sometimes makes the party more complicated, but strong."

Others on the party's left wing praised the decision. "Team members who always shoot the ball into their own goal shouldn't be surprised if they suddenly aren't welcome anymore," SPD parliamentarian Axel Schäfer told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "From Clement, one only hears 'I, I, I.' It would nice to hear a 'we.'"

Clement is in hot water for coming out against an SPD candidate, Andrea Ypsilanti, in Hesse state elections early this year. Clement wrote an opinion piece last January for the daily Die Welt questioning Ypsilanti on energy issues. Later he said on TV that he wouldn't vote for her. It didn't help that Clement happens to sit on the board of an energy company called RWE, which also operates nuclear reactors. He's railed against Berlin's planned phase-out of nuclear energy -- a phase-out his party supports and one which the SPD, when Gerhard Schröder was chancellor, wrote into law.

But Clement has come to symbolize the party's woes. As economy minister under Schröder he pushed hard for the reform package known as Reform 2010, which also includes the sharp welfare reductions known as Harz IV. Many on the left wing of the SPD blame the reform package for the party's ongoing hemorrhage of membership and its extraordinarily low approval ratings. The attempt to throw him out of the party has inflamed tension between the party's left and right wings.

Clement's lawyer in the case, former Interior Minister Otto Schily, said on Thursday that Clement will appeal the decision. German dailies look at the plight of the SPD once again on Friday.

SPIEGEL ONLINE's Claus Christian Malzahn writes:

"Clement's comments prior to the election in Hesse were of course underhanded and disruptive. But they shouldn't have been taken any more seriously than those of Statler and Waldorf in the Muppet Show. They only became politically important because of the massive attention that was called to them. Had he been ignored, nobody would remember his comments now."

"Clement was also never the future of the party. Rather, he has always been part of its conscience…. He understands how to guide the SPD to power on both the state and national level and how to keep it there. His left-wing critics have a lot to learn."

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes on Friday:

"The decision of the North Rhine-Westphalia arbitration commission (to throw Clement out of the party) isn't just dumb, it is a nationwide debacle for the SPD. Clement may be arrogant, and he may have made a number of mistakes, but the blow delivered to a man who has dedicated 38 years of his life to the SPD is excessive. And it is misguided because it shows just how little freedom of expression there is in parts of the SPD."

"The federal party may be furious, but it should also be worried that worse might be around the corner. The Clement debate will also bring a new debate about the policies of the Schröder era and about the party's direction."

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"A reprimand is the mildest punishment that a party arbitration commission can mete out for (infringements the like Clement's). Wolfgang Clement should have accepted (a reprimand handed down earlier) because he had earned it. But as usual, he refused to admit wrongdoing. When it came to the next level of hearings, his stubbornness provided grist to the mill of those who wanted him thrown out of the SPD."

"Clement's offense is to be a prime mover behind the Agenda 2010 reforms and one of the loudest voices against efforts to water them down. Schröder is out of the picture and (former party chair and government minister Franz) Müntefering is likewise quiet. Clement's warning against Ypsilanti's energy policies in Hesse finally gave his enemies an excuse to shut him up. Should the efforts to throw him out succeed, the SPD may soon lose more members on the right as well as on the left."

The Financial Times Deutschland agrees:

"This is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to the SPD."

"There is no question that Clement has rarely missed a chance to provoke the left wing of the SPD. He is in favor of nuclear energy, against the introduction of a minimum wage and in favor of loosening job protection rules. But a democratic party must be able to withstand such debates, no matter how bitter they might be. There are a number of SPD members, especially in the party's conservative wing, who stand firmly behind Clement. It would be a major mistake to alienate them."

-- Charles Hawley; 2:15 p.m. CET