The designated leader of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), Kurt Beck -- who is also the burly premier of the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate -- was seen as the only possible candidate for the SPD's top job after Matthias Platzeck stepped down as chairman for health reasons after just five months.

Platzeck's departure has highlighted a major problem for Germany's oldest political party, which is junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. The crisis shows the SPD lacks a new generation of leaders and after years of infighting hasn't got a clear sense of what it stands for. Beck, expected to be confirmed May 14, is the SPD's fourth leader in little more than two years, an attrition rate that reflects a struggle between traditionalists opposed to tough economic reforms and centrists who want to continue the modernization of Germany pursued by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who lost last September's election and had previously stepped down as SPD chairman under internal pressure in 2004.

In his first major speech since being selected to become party leader, Beck recently signalled he wants to return his party to its core leftist values. But the country's newspapers on Tuesday believe he has failed to give a clear idea of what direction the party should take.

Business daily Financial Times Deutschland says the SPD is in transition, both in terms of its staff and its program. "Just as the seemingly smooth transition from Matthias Platzeck to Kurt Beck hasn't solved the generational problem, it remains unclear where the sickly 143-year-old party sees its future in terms of policy." Beck's speech was designed to please everyone, writes the paper. He said tax rates were too low but didn't explicitly call for tax hikes. He adopted his predecessor's idea of a "caring welfare state" but also demanded more efficiency. Beck spoke with credibility despite the fact that he "wholly lacks the capacity for stirring rhetoric."

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung is also critical. "The SPD's misery was palpable in the Berlin Congress Hall, not just because its new leader was visibly struggling with his role. The party is presenting itself as a 'force for renewal" but is in truth emaciated." The paper finishes by commenting how the party has burned through its personnel leaving a sad husk remaining. 

Conservative Die Welt says Beck is supporting big government and indirectly calling for tax hikes. "The Social Democratic vision of the future continues to center on the state and its responsibility for education, the environment, pension provision and child care," writes Die Welt. "But the government's share of the economy is still too small -- so higher taxes are need, especially for the rich," goes Die Welt's interpretation of Beck's speech.

Elsewhere, Merkel's Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen, a dynamic mother of seven, is causing controversy with a raft of proposals that include penalizing families with benefit cuts if fathers don't spend at least two months looking after the baby, consulting churches to instil more Christian values in children, and forcing foreign parents to send their children to kindergarten so that they can improve their German before they go to school.

She has provoked the ire of Bild Zeitung's irreverent columnist Franz Josef Wagner who has the following to say: "You, dear Mrs von der Leyen, want men to grow breasts. You want to pay out parental benefit only if the father and mother share in the work of caring for the baby. For me that's tantamount to emasculation. What kind of impression to you have of men? Changing nappies for money. A macho like me always changed the nappies of my daughter out of love."