The Parlamentarische Linke (, abbreviated ''PL'') is a platform within the

Social Democratic Party of Germany The Social Democratic Party of Germany ( , SPD ) is a social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany. Saskia Esken has been the party's leader since the 2019 leadership election together w ...

(SPD)'s

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the lower house of the Germany, German Federalism in Germany, federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag wa ...

group. As of 2022, 96 of the group's 206 members belong to the Parliamentary Left, making it the largest of the three extant platforms in the SPD group, alongside the

Seeheimer Kreis The Seeheimer Kreis (; English: "Seeheim Circle") is an official internal grouping in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The group describes itself as "undogmatic and pragmatic" and generally takes moderately liberal economic positio ...

and Berlin Network. The Parliamentary Left represents

social democratic Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...

positions within the party. The platform has three speakers:

Matthias Miersch Matthias Miersch (born 19 December 1968) is a German criminal defense lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Member of the Bundestag since the 2005 German federal election, representing the Hannover-La ...

Sönke Rix Sönke Rix (born 3 December 1975) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Schleswig-Holstein from 2005 to 2025. Political career Rix first became a member ...

and

Wiebke Esdar Wiebke Esdar (born 11 February 1984) is a German psychologist and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She has been a member of the Bundestag since the 2017 election, when she won the constituency of Bielefeld – Gütersloh II with ...

Elisabeth Kaiser Elisabeth Kaiser ( Lier, born 4 March 1987) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag from the state of Thuringia since 2017. In addition to her parliamentary work, Kaiser has b ...

is the platform

treasurer A treasurer is a person responsible for the financial operations of a government, business, or other organization. Government The treasury of a country is the department responsible for the country's economy, finance and revenue. The treasure ...

. Other prominent members include SPD group chairman

Rolf Mützenich Rolf Heinrich Mützenich (born 25 June 1959) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who served as leader of the SPD group in the Bundestag from June 2019 until February 2025 Early life and education Mützenich was ...

and party co-leader

Saskia Esken Saskia Christina Esken (' Hofer; born 28 August 1961) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as co-leader of the party since being 2019 Social Democratic Party of Ger ...

Profile

The Parliamentary Left describes itself as "an association of social democratic members of the Bundestag". It represents the

left wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politic ...

of the Social Democratic Party, "advoca

ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 199 ...

for freedom, equality and social progress". Their principles are essentially based on the party program that existed until the 1990s. To this end, the platform supports

Keynesian Keynesian economics ( ; sometimes Keynesianism, named after British economist John Maynard Keynes) are the various macroeconomic theories and models of how aggregate demand (total spending in the economy) strongly influences economic output an ...

approaches to economic and social policy. They were critical of the largely

supply-side Supply-side economics is a macroeconomic theory postulating that economic growth can be most effectively fostered by lowering taxes, decreasing regulation, and allowing free trade. According to supply-side economics theory, consumers will ...

Agenda 2010 The Agenda 2010 is a series of reforms planned and executed by the German government in the early 2000s, a Social Democrats/ Greens coalition at that time, which aimed to reform the German welfare system and labour relations. The declared objectiv ...

'' reforms of

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German former politician and Lobbying, lobbyist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (S ...

's government, but officially called for their amendment rather than repeal. In the area of tax policy, the PL call for a higher

inheritance tax International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pro ...

and the reintroduction of the

wealth tax A wealth tax (also called a capital tax or equity tax) is a tax on an entity's holdings of assets or an entity's net worth. This includes the total value of personal assets, including cash, bank deposits, real estate, assets in insurance and ...

. They reject proposals for a strict limitation of the

national debt A country's gross government debt (also called public debt or sovereign debt) is the financial liabilities of the government sector. Changes in government debt over time reflect primarily borrowing due to past government deficits. A deficit occ ...

, and opposed the introduction of the debt brake. They support efforts to

combat climate change Climate change mitigation (or decarbonisation) is action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. Climate change mitigation actions include conserving energy and replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sour ...

, including internationally-agreed climate targets, strong investment in

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

, and changes to subsidies and taxes for this purpose. In light of the record debt taken on by the federal government during the

COVID-19 pandemic in Germany The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. On 27 January 2020, the first case in Germany was confirmed near Munich, Bavaria. By mid February, the arising cluster of cases had been fully contained ...

, the PL advocates a long-term move away from balanced budget principles, pushing for public investment in education, digitisation, and climate. The Parliamentary Left favours closer ties with the Greens and The Left and the development of red-red-green coalitions; the first such coalition in a western state was formed in 2019 under the leadership of

Carsten Sieling Carsten Günter Erich Sieling (born 13 January 1959) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as the President of the Senate and Mayor of Bremen from 2015 to 2019. His successor is Andreas Bovenschulte. Political ...

, former speaker of the Parliamentary Left. The Left became the leading member of a governing coalition for the first time in the eastern state of Thuringia after the 2014 state election, alongside the SPD and Greens.

Organisation

History

The Parliamentary Left finds its origins in the "Group of the 16th Floor" (, founded by 21 mostly young SPD Bundestag members in October 1969. This group was associated with the

Extra-Parliamentary Opposition An extra-parliamentary opposition, also referred to as simply extra-parliamentary or extraparliamentary, is a political movement opposed to a ruling government or political party that chooses not to engage in elections. Many social movements could ...

and pushed for reform within the SPD parliamentary group. The modern platform was officially founded in 1972, then known as the ''Leverkusener Kreis'' (

Leverkusen Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf. The city is part of the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan ...

er Circle). It was refounded as the Parliamentary Left in 1980.

Spokespersons

Members

The following is a list of members of the Parliamentary Left as of January 2022.''Our Members''
/ref>

References

{{Social Democratic Party of Germany 1972 establishments in West Germany Social democracy Social Democratic Party of Germany Political party factions in Germany