Federal Labour Minister Bärbel Bas (SPD) is resigning from all her offices and is also stepping down as SPD leader. The Rhineland-Palatinate SPD deputy and SPD vice-chair Alexander Schweitzer is to move up into the cabinet as her successor at the Labour Ministry.
Bas justifies her move in a public statement with the death of her stepdaughter and with public attacks on her, including from the ranks of the coalition partner CDU/CSU. “Today I am addressing you with a very personal message,” she writes. After the death of her stepdaughter, she says, she realised that she needed time to process her grief, according to the statement. She wants to take that time. Bas also writes that the public attacks on her had intensified further – pointing also to the coalition partner.
Bas had not taken part in any public event since the end of September. At the beginning of last week she again cancelled appointments. The reason was “a bereavement in her immediate family”, the Labour Ministry’s press office said last Monday. Bas remains in the Bundestag as an MP.
Criticism from the CDU/CSU and associations
Criticism of Bas had recently grown. The CDU MP and head of the parliamentary circle for small and medium-sized businesses told the “Bild” newspaper: “For months she has been blocking the reforms our country so urgently needs.” Other members of the government partner also voiced criticism of Bas’s work. The implementation of the jointly agreed reforms was taking too long for many.
The federal government has agreed that companies should be able to extend fixed-term contracts up to six times and that employees should in future be able to be hired on fixed-term contracts for up to four years. In addition, companies should find it easier to part with top earners again. The measures are intended to revive the frozen German labour market – and help consolidate the hesitant upturn.
Criticism of the labour minister also grew among the associations. “The patience of businesses is exhausted,” complained Oliver Zander, chief executive of the employers’ association Gesamtmetall. “Anyone who promises a reform, sets a deadline and months later still has not presented a viable draft is engaging in a political go-slow.”
“Behind the offices, we are all just human beings”
SPD leader Klingbeil expressed sadness about Bas’s decision. “Behind the offices, we are all just human beings,” he stressed. That is why he can personally understand the step. “The attacks against her in the last days of her mourning were indecent. That is not how it should be,” stressed the Vice-Chancellor.
SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch paid tribute to Bas, saying she had shown integrity even when it became uncomfortable. “But her strength is at an end.”
Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz has expressed his respect for Bas. Bas and he had “worked together in a spirit of trust” in the federal government, the CDU leader wrote on Monday on the online platform X. He thanked her for her commitment. “Her decision deserves respect.” As a father and grandfather, he said, he could only guess how heavy this loss weighs. He wished her and her family much strength.
Editor’s note: The change at the head of the Labour Ministry comes at a time when the coalition is under time pressure on labour market reform. Whether the change of personnel will speed up the stalled process is open. The reform plans mentioned have so far only been agreed, but not implemented.
