As of: March 28, 2024, 7:26 p.m
By: Babett Gumbrecht
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After 26 years in the Bundestag: SPD foreign politician Roth is saying goodbye to politics. Why his commitment to Ukraine also plays a role:
Berlin – He is considered one of the most prominent representatives of the SPD: Michael Roth. But politics is over now. The SPD foreign politician wants to leave Heringen in East Hesse in 2025
withdraw from party events. It's nothing new that a politician sometimes throws in the towel, but the reasons Roth gives make people sit up and take notice.
One reason for withdrawing from the party has to do with the Ukraine war: “Not everyone liked my early commitment to Ukraine. And when I traveled to the country shortly after the outbreak of war, some in the parliamentary group didn't even greet me," the 53-year-old chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee told
Stern magazine
. But the truth is that he also bears some responsibility for the alienation: “I fought a lot publicly for my positions, but neglected discussions with colleagues.” The question of war and peace has caused a new hardship in the SPD.
Michael Roth (SPD) speaks at a plenary session in the German Bundestag. © Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa/archive image
The atmosphere in the SPD parliamentary group hall is like a refrigerator
Roth draws his conclusions: “As a politician, you have to ask yourself every four years whether you still want to, still can, and are still allowed to. And I don't want any more. I'll do it until the federal election. After that I’m out.”
Roth also justifies the decision with a creeping alienation from the party and politics. It was always clear to him that he did not want to retire as a member of parliament. For some time now he has noticed: “I no longer have the bite. I feel an inner distance from the company. Now it's over with politics. That's a good feeling."
The Hessian MP also referred to his growing distance from the SPD. “I am a passionate social democrat and wanted to become chairman of the SPD. But over the last year I've noticed that I'm becoming more and more at odds with our meetings, that the committees and the atmosphere in them are bothering me. When the door to the parliamentary group room opened, I had the last impression that I was climbing into a refrigerator.”
After 26 years in the Bundestag: Roth is increasingly lacking the bite in politics
Roth, who took a few months off in 2022 due to mental exhaustion, also spoke about the rigors of politics. “Top politicians today need absolute stress resistance, mental and physical strength that is superhuman. The ability not to be fooled. An exuberant self-confidence,” he said. Anyone who pursues top politics today has to give up almost completely. “This is brutal. Today, top politicians simply have to survive every day.”
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Roth has been a member of the Bundestag for the SPD since 1998. From 2013 to 2021 he was Minister of State for Europe in the Foreign Office, and from 2014 to 2021 he was also the Federal Government Commissioner for Franco-German cooperation. Since 2021 he has been chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag.
(bg/dpa)