The Social Democratic Party of Germany (German: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) is a social-democratic political party in Germany. The party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in Germany, along with the conservative CDU/CSU, and is led by Sigmar Gabriel.
The SPD last governed at the federal level in a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union from 2005 until 27 October 2009. The SPD conceded defeat in the federal election of September 2009, with its share of votes having dropped from 34.2% to 23%, compared to 2005, and became the largest opposition party represented in the Bundestag. The party participates in ten state governments, of which seven are governed by SPD Minister-Presidents.
The SPD is a full member party of the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International. It is Germany's oldest extant political party, established in 1875, in the German Parliament. It was also one of the first Marxist-influenced parties in the world.
Read more about Social Democratic Party Of Germany: Party Platform, History
Famous quotes containing the words social, democratic, party and/or germany:
“...every woman who has any margin of time or money to spare should adopt some one public interest, some philanthropic undertaking, or some social agitation of reform, and give to that cause whatever time and work she may be able to afford ...”
—Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904)
“It’s like pushing marbles through a sieve. It means the sieve will never be the same again.”
—Before the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami. As quoted in Crazy Salad, ch. 6, by Nora Ephron (1972)
““It is with Love as with Cuckoldom”Mthe suffering party is at least the third, but generally the last in the house who knows any thing about the matter.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“We are fighting in the quarrel of civilization against barbarism, of liberty against tyranny. Germany has become a menace to the whole world. She is the most dangerous enemy of liberty now existing.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)