SPD on Europe

The SPD wants the EU's next multiannual budget to provide enough money for regional funding and wants the state to keep its classification as a “transition region.” The state government and municipalities are to keep deciding how money from the regional and social funds is used. The party wants to strengthen European programs for exchange and encounters.

The SPD wants the state to keep getting a lot of funding from the EU. It wants to push the federal government on this. The state and the towns should decide themselves how to use the money. Programs for exchange in Europe should also stay strong.

The programs named are ESF+, ERDF, INTERREG, Erasmus+, LEADER and Creative Europe, which enable encounters among municipalities, associations, cultural workers and young people. In the SPD's view, decisions on the regional fund and the social fund should rest where the expertise is, namely with the state and the municipalities. The party wants to examine whether cooperation with comparable coastal and agricultural regions such as Brittany can strengthen exchange. The One World state network and participation in the promoters' program are to keep receiving support.

The SPD wants to expand cooperation with the democratic countries around the Baltic Sea and jointly improve the protection of critical infrastructure there. It calls cooperation with Poland the centerpiece of the state's international relations and wants to deepen it institutionally. A comprehensive neighborhood strategy is to be developed for this.

The SPD wants to work more closely with the countries around the Baltic Sea. Together they should better protect important cables and networks. Working with Poland is especially important to the SPD. It wants to make a new plan for the neighborhood.

The framework is the state's Baltic Sea strategy adopted in 2024; the SPD sees the state as a hub for energy, data and communication networks. Cooperation with the partner voivodeships of West Pomerania and Pomerania and in the Szczecin metropolitan region is to be deepened, for example through a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC). The Euroregion Pomerania, the European Academy in Waren and the Europe Direct centers are to keep receiving support. The party wants to maintain the partnerships with Southwest Finland, the Ukrainian region of Chernihiv and Mecklenburg County in the US, and is open to new ones, for instance with Brittany.