13th Congress of the Socialist International

After his resignation as Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt remains Chairman of the SPD. As an internationally directed personality, Brandt does not limit his political activities to the domestic scene. He intends to advise Spain and Portugal as well as the countries of Latin America on the path toward democracy and to devote himself more strongly to the North-South dialog. Since Willy Brandt achieved renown as Foreign Minister and Chancellor and as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he is able to devote himself to human welfare also in several offices in the international sphere.

The 13th Congress of the Socialist International (SI) meeting in Geneva on November 26, 1976 elects Willy Brandt to the Presidency. Under Brandt's leadership the SI undergoes some far-reaching organizational and structural changes. The capabilities and effectiveness of the organization is substantially improved. Willy Brandt frees the SI from its "Eurocentrism" and opens friendly relations with allied parties in countries of the third world. Regional and substantive conferences and congresses as well as conferences and study groups of party leaders become important instruments of dialog and collaboration.

Book jacket: The Socialist International - a New Beginning

©Willy-Brandt-Archiv

Under Willy Brandt's Presidency, the SI establishes new centers of gravity for its work. It attaches particular significance to the arms control issue. Brandt challenges the governments of the world to put an end to the "insanity of the arms race" and establishes an arms control council under the leadership of the Finnish Prime Minister Kalevi Sorsa. The arms control council develops various proposals that aim at improving East-West relations through arms reduction and confidence-building measures. The SI calls for a dialog between the industrial and the developing countries and conducts studies of global economic issues, in order to develop proposals for a new world economic order.

Willy Brandt does not want the SI to be seen as a "social-democratic world executive". He considers the organization to be a working association of sovereign and independent parties that has the aim of exerting a "political-moral force" on a global level.

Willy Brandt serves as President of the SI until September 1992, just a few weeks before his death.