“One of the formative faces of social democracy”
SPD nominates Josephine Ortleb as Bundestag Vice
Updated on March 24, 2025 – 7:13 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
Josephine Ortleb has been a member of the Bundestag since 2017. Now the parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group is to become Vice President of Parliament.
The Saarland SPD politician Josephine Ortleb is to become deputy parliamentary president. Ortleb was confirmed by the SPD parliamentary group on Monday evening by acclamation, i.e. by an informal manner. She received the “full approval” of the MPs, it said from parliamentary group circles. A vote by hand signal was dispensed with.
The 38-year-old group leader Lars Klingbeil had proposed. Previously, the SPD faction board unanimously spoken out for Ortleb.
Klingbeil praised the previous parliamentary managing director Ortleb before the meeting as a “experienced parliamentarian”, who had repeatedly shown leadership. In view of the expected eventful years, it is important that “experienced forces” are responsible in parliament. Ortleb is an “integrative force” in the SPD, which has repeatedly gained its constituency with a strong first vote result. “This shows that people trust her,” continued Klingbeil.
Ortleb will be “one of the formative faces of social democracy” in the next few years.
Ortleb is a restaurateur and specialist in the hospitality industry and sits for the Saarbrücken constituency in the Bundestag. She won the direct mandate for the third time in the election in February and has been in parliament since 2017.
The CDU MP Julia Klöckner is to become the new Bundestag president. It is to be elected at the constituent meeting of the new parliament on Tuesday. Her deputies will also be elected at the first meeting of the new Bundestag.
In mid -March, the “Tagesspiegel” reported that the previous Bundestag Vice President Aydan Özoğuz did not run again. Özoğuz shared an anti-Zionist contribution to the Gaza War on Instagram last October and received massive criticism for this. Her SPD colleague and still Bundestag President Bärbel Bas also ruffled her for it. Özoğuz publicly apologized for the post office.
As a potential successor Özoğuz ‘, several names have been circulating in political Berlin in the past few days. The candidate must be well networked in the party and faction and, above all, have experience with parliamentary processes, it was said in party circles before the decision on Monday.
It was also a central consideration in the SPD whether you would like to provide someone with the position who had made a contribution to the league. Or whether you put on a “new face” in the representative office instead to carry out the “generation change” promised by Klingbeil. With the nomination for Ortleb, the SPD has apparently decided on the second way.
