GERMANY: Germany's Social Democrat leader designate, Kurt Beck, has distanced himself from the market-oriented Schröder-Blair doctrine and called indirectly for higher taxes to finance an "empowering state".
Mr Beck opened negotiations for a new party programme yesterday by calling for a new debate about the role of the state in the 21st century.
"Democracy cannot end where economic matters begin . . . we cannot allow ourselves to capitulate to globalisation," said Mr Beck to jubilant party faithful in Berlin yesterday.
The stout, bearded state premier in Rhineland Palatinate will be sworn in as Social Democrat (SPD) chairman next month, the fourth party leader in four years. Even before taking office, he appeared determined yesterday to draw a line under the Schröder era.
He said Germany's future depended on moving away from financing life-long dole payments to having the financial means to finance greater education and training to combat unemployment - through higher taxes if necessary.
"It cannot be a deadly sin just to think about this," he said, while carefully avoiding the phrase "tax hike". Talk of tax hikes annoys the party's right-wingers and the party's CDU coalition partners, particularly ahead of next year's Vat rise.
Mr Beck has suggested that closing tax loopholes and removing subsidies could generate extra income. But his 20-page proposal calls for a new wealth tax, as agreed in the coalition agreement, and higher corporate taxes.
After the top-down leadership style of Gerhard Schröder, Mr Beck signalled a drastically different party leadership style yesterday, encouraging party rank- and-file to participate and "play your part" in the discussion.
Outside of domestic themes, he said he was interested in "strengthening Europe so that it can take its place not against another continent, but to play its part and . . . bring its social values to the world".
The SPD is urgently in need of a new political programme: its current programme was agreed four weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall and before German unification in 1990.
The Christian Democrats (CDU) began talks as well yesterday to replace its 1994 party programme, with the future role of the state also playing a central role. But CDU general secretary Ronald Pofalla, leading the programme discussions, has called for less state not more.
The new CDU programme will emphasise Christian values in a globalised world and the value of personal freedom, he said, but will also try to break the SPD's monopoly on the idea of "social justice". Mr Pofalla also indicated a shift in the CDU's family policy to "do justice to the diverse reality".
"It is our common goal to have more children in Germany. An important condition for this appears to be the honest acceptance of different family forms."
The programme discussions make clear that Germany's two large political parties are already thinking of the time after the grand coalition.