Matthias Miersch becomes the new general secretary of the SPD. In the evening, the party executive nominated the 55-year-old. The position only became vacant in the afternoon when Kevin Kühnert announced his immediate resignation for health reasons. The SPD chairmen Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil announced a quick decision on Kühnert’s successor in the afternoon. This took place with the nomination of Matthias Miersch.
Known for his negotiating skills
The 55-year-old lawyer has been a member of the Bundestag since 2005. He has always won his mandate in the Hannover-Land II constituency directly. Since 2016, Miersch has been deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and is responsible for the environment, energy, climate, agriculture and consumer protection. Since 2015 he has also been spokesman for the “Parliamentary Left”, the largest of three movements within the parliamentary group. “I see myself as a team player,” he said at the time in an interview with “vorwärts”.
As a lawyer, Miersch prevented the deportation of the family of Adis Ahmetovic, who has also been a member of the SPD parliamentary group since the recent federal election, at the end of the 1990s. In the Bundestag, Matthias Miersch is known for his negotiating skills and, among other things, negotiated the compromise on the Building Energy Act, the so-called Heating Act, within the traffic light factions. Miersch was also significantly involved in the negotiations on the relief package for farmers in the spring. Previously, as a member of the “Coal Commission”, he worked on the roadmap for the coal phase-out.
Election at the next party conference
Matthias Miersch is well connected within the SPD. He has been a member of the party executive committee since 2013 and chairman of the influential SPD district of Hanover since 2019. He will be officially introduced as Secretary General at a press conference on Tuesday. Miersch will initially hold the office on a provisional basis and is expected to be elected at the upcoming party conference.
