regional party associations as well as experts in constitutional law. The party executive nominated Nahles as the new leader, with Olaf Scholz, as the longest-serving deputy, taking over as acting party leader until the party conference on 22 April 2018. In December 2020, Schulz announced that he would not stand in the 2021 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term. Political positions European integration Schulz is widely considered an ardent EU supporter. He has hailed European unification as being civilization's greatest achievement over the past century. In 2014, however, he argued it was also essential that responsibility was delegated away from Brussels and down to national, regional and local authorities, allowing the EU to focus on the big issues. As a result of Schulz's pro-Europeanism, both supporters and detractors have linked him with the slogan "MEGA" – "Make Europe Great Again" – as a parody of US President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again". Schulz is committed to strengthening Europe and the European institutions. In 2016, he presented a ten-point plan for a reform of the EU with Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. It calls for a "streamlining" of European structures and the establishment of a strong European government under the control of the European Parliament. Schulz has often emphasised that the European Union is the best way to banish the "demons of the twentieth century", such as racism, xenophobia and antisemitism. The Jerusalem Post criticised his words on antisemitism as "meaningless condemnations". After the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a membership referendum, Schulz warned in mid-2016: "If we break the instruments with which we banish the demons, we will set them free again." He is one of the 27 initiators of the Charter of Digital Fundamental Rights published in November 2016 Of the European Union. In December 2017, Schulz called for a new constitutional treaty for a "United States of Europe". He proposed that this constitution should be written by "a convention that includes civil society and the people" and that any state that declined to accept this proposed constitution should have to leave the bloc. His proposal is "likely to be met with some resistance from Merkel and other EU leaders". Security policy In front of the European Council on 19 December 2013, Schulz took responsibility for the initiation of the Cox-Kwaśniewski mission to Ukraine. In the