SPD chairman Lars Klingbeil has announced a realignment of his party's Ostpolitik.
"We focused too much on Russia," he told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
"In future we will have to cooperate much more closely with the Eastern European countries." The sentence in the SPD's basic program, according to which security in Europe can only be achieved with Russia, is no longer correct against the background of the Ukraine war.
According to Klingbeil, the party's internal commission for international politics will determine the future principles of social democratic foreign and security policy in the coming months.
"This also includes a critical look back," said the SPD leader.
The SPD is proud of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik.
However, mistakes were also made.
However, these were not solely to do with the SPD.
"Angela Merkel sat in the chancellery for 16 years," said Klingbeil.
"I'm concerned with why politics as a whole, even after the occupation of Crimea in 2014, relied solely on change through trade," added Klingbeil.
The answer is important for Germany's future relations with other countries, such as China.
Germany must not bring itself into a one-sided dependence on China.
"In the case of China, it means that we have to massively reduce the technological dependence on the People's Republic, which we have long been in," he said.