ABSTRACT
The presidium, meeting weekly, is charged with carrying out the decisions voted on by the executive and with setting political and organizational guidelines. As to party matters, the presidium determines the general guidelines, the content of crucial resolutions, intraparty and organizational questions, the scheduling and agenda of upcoming party conferences, budgetary matters, and strategies for election campaigns. In addition, the presidium or its individual members hold talks with the executives of Social Democratic Party (SPD) associations and with representatives of other organizations. The presidium is not omnipotent. Its members know that other party organs can challenge its decisions and that it is constrained by convention guidelines. Nevertheless, it has a prestige unmatched by others within the organization that gives its decisions a symbolic value. According to the Party Law of 1967 and the SPD statute, the party convention, normally meeting biennially, is nominally the highest organ, but, as noted, in practice the presidium is the body formulating policy.
