Mr. Dulig, is to experience Germany to the three Landtag elections in the East in the autumn of the first AfD Prime Minister?
no, this is not so.
According to the polls, the AfD in several countries could be a powerful force…
All the talk about the AfD and make you strong. We have our own basic and derived concepts in the foreground and not on the playing field, the right-wing populists curls. Thus, we provide the AfD also in terms of content. It will come out, that the AfD represents content, which could damage the majority of the people in East Germany. Unlike the SPD, you have no strategies against poverty in old age or for digitisation.
you can trust the promise of the CDU, that you don’t want to work with the AfD together or form a coalition?
Even if the AfD should know the three options good approval, I don’t know anyone who wants to form a coalition with this party. In Saxony, the CDU and its leader Michael Kretschmer, the AfD has issued a clear rejection. I don’t have confidence no reason to. With concern I see, however, the regional co-operation between the CDU and the AfD, as for example in Dresden.
As you want in Saxony, wants to increase the SPD in the other two Eastern countries of their meager poll numbers?
it’s bugging Me, if many do so, as the election outcome would be in the autumn. I can tell you that It will come out differently, because we are going to fight for social Democrats the trust. We want to go with hope and Confidence in the choice of conflicts, and our country is not a priori bad. We have something to defend our parliamentary democracy in the East, and that was what built up in the last 30 years of the people here.
In all the new countries (beyond Berlin), the SPD only around 20,000 members, only a fifth of the members with the strongest Association in NRW. This organizational weakness can be offset?
The East German SPD was a complete re-establishment of the Opposition against the SED. We are proud of, Therefore we hold the first annual kick-off retreat of the East German SPD in Schwante, where the Ost-SPD in 1989, was founded. We could not but build other than the PDS, and the East-CDU in the existing structures, in takeovers, no members of the tribe. This difference closes only slowly and is still felt today. But I don’t see that as a weakness. We have found other, sometimes better ways of doing the party’s work and us, as the SPD of modern. We work together, for example, even for the non-party candidates and, as the SPD is very open to new faces and ideas.
What is the message that should emanate from the Meeting in Schwante?
We will make it clear that the Ost-SPD has their own answers, because they are the people in the new countries, understands better than many others. It is time that you look different in East Germany. We want to introduce with their own self-confidence issues, and are committed to our own point of view on politics and society. This is clearly illustrated in the case of the subject of work and child poverty. The people in East Germany work more and get less than their West German colleagues. This must not remain so. However, because the trade unions play a smaller role, it is the task of the SPD, how workers get their fair share of the good economic development. Since we’re talking to explain about a higher minimum wage and more opportunities for collective agreements to be generally binding. The issue of child poverty in the East German länder very strong support for the idea of a children’s basic security. I am glad that many of the West German national associations to support us in the meantime.
What are the SPD in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia during the election campaign of the Federal SPD expect?
of Course, there is always also a national trend, but the voters will assess our services and promises in your own state. In Saxony we have won at the state election in 2014, which makes me also for the autumn confident. We know that we can make it on your own. What is helps us for sure, if the Federal SPD sets her begun way of renewal even more.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel discovered her East German origin, and shows some understanding for the Frustration and discontent in East Germany. You welcome that?
I am pleased that the year-long tough struggle to find a good policy for East Germany, seems now at last, with the Chancellor to arrive. I can’t remember any election campaign in the last few years in the East for the CDU or Mrs Merkel would have been a big issue. I would hope, however, that we come to the mere statement that in the East things are a little different, and with good policies will start to change here is really something. With the new basic pension, we take the first step. Children’s basic protection and the equalization of wages would be a next.
The left party in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has defined, who is East German, that is, who to 31. December 1975, was born in the GDR and in her, until 1989, or on the verge of lived. That is your Definition of East German?
I oppose a Definition according to blood groups. This debate emphasises the Divisive and not Unifying. It helps us also. It is not a matter when or where you were born, but what one has to contribute in the society. We need to talk about how the different experiences of life, whether East or West to shape the community and what it’s doing to the people, when growing up in different systems.
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