CDU board member Winter
“Habeck and Lindner have to present the climate beer coaster”
2/16/2022, 9:56 am
CDU board member Wiebke Winter demands from the traffic light that she must say what the transformation towards climate neutrality costs “and how smaller incomes can escape from this cost trap”. She says about Friedrich Merz that he is “the right chairman now”.
ntv.de: Five months after the Union lost the election, Friedrich Merz is at the head of the party and parliamentary group. As a representative of the young CDU generation, do you support his leadership?
Wiebke Winter: At the first party congress [als Merz gegen Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer unterlag] I wasn’t allowed to vote, even in the second round [als Armin Laschet zum CDU-Chef gewählt wurde] I wasn’t a Merz fan yet. I felt like we needed something different. It’s difficult to express, but I have the impression that Merz has changed in the last three years. He’s the right chairman now. We saw that the old course, i.e. Kramp-Karrenbauer or Laschet, didn’t work out. Now we need the clear edge and self-discovery to come to a new policy. The party needs that after the Merkel years. We have always relied on governing, but we had forgotten how to set our own accents.
Does Merz have to cut old braids? Does he have to break with the Merkel era to make a fresh start?
The CDU makes sure that we are the last remaining people’s party. We need the different characters. But we now need someone to lead the party, who can endure a discourse, who provokes with his statements and thus makes the CDU stronger.
Where does the self-confidence that the CDU is the last remaining people’s party come from? The SPD narrowly won the election and the Union has been below 30 percent in the polls for months.
If you believe scientists, the Union still has a potential voter base of over 50 percent. If half the population can imagine voting for a party, it’s a people’s party. The SPD is meanwhile already on the decline again, as current polls show.
You are a member of the Climate Union and argued with Luisa Neubauer about the right answers in climate policy. It has become quieter around you, you are not sitting at the leadership table of your party. Do your positions not fit the party?
I’ve just been re-elected to the federal executive board, I’m very active in my home town of Bremen and represent the issue of climate. The CDU must afford diversity of opinion. Friedrich Merz and I do not agree on all points either. For example, he sees more potential in nuclear fusion than I do. Nuclear fusion may play an important role in the future. However, we can no longer wait until the technology can be used in 2040. We now need a massive expansion of renewable energies in order to become climate-neutral. First we have to do that without nuclear fusion – and I’m convinced that we can do it.
The decision to phase out nuclear power under Angela Merkel is now the subject of heated debate. Is Germany lying to itself if we buy nuclear energy from France and politicians want to put wind farms on people’s front doors? Is the exit too early and too unprepared?
No, Germany’s exit from nuclear power is correct. We should avoid this debate. There are no longer any investors in the nuclear power business. A rethinking has also started in the economy, the future lies with renewable energies. Of course, we cannot expect people to have a wind farm in their immediate vicinity. There must be a firmly defined distance radius that must not be tampered with. In addition, we should talk more about the expansion of offshore wind power in the North and Baltic Seas. Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck is also encountering reality these days. The difficulty is not the expansion in Germany, but winning over the people. In opposition, it was easy for the Greens to make the Union look immovable or old. But whether Habeck will lead Germany to a climate fairy tale remains to be seen more than ever.
All parties in the Bundestag want to stop man-made climate change, apart from the AfD. But there is often a lack of a concrete translation of what it costs the citizens in concrete terms or where everyday life is changing. Your party leader wanted the tax return on the beer coaster. Do you have a similar format for the climate cost calculation?
The traffic lights, especially the Greens, have to be honest here. The Greens want to change the lives of citizens, from food to the use of transport to private housing – everything should change in the name of climate protection. And this is exactly where I see the decisive difference to the CDU. I fight for climate protection out of conviction and I am a Christian Democrat from the bottom of my heart. Translated, this means for me that I don’t elevate climate protection to political sentiment, but want to tackle it pragmatically. Many people already get dizzy when their energy bill comes in. At a time like this, we also have to talk about how we can shape climate protection in a social way. The government has to say what the transformation costs and how smaller incomes can escape from these cost traps. For example, we could immediately facilitate energy self-sufficiency. But only when politicians do everything they can to offer people climate-friendly alternatives, from the expansion of local and long-distance transport routes and the e-charging infrastructure to affordable organic food, can we expect a change in habits. I expect the climate coaster from the traffic light, Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner have to present it.
You have joined the Merkel CDU, now a new era is beginning. Do you notice changes?
For me, as for many women of my generation, Angela Merkel is a role model. I came to the CDU federal executive board when she was no longer party leader. But on the fringes of meetings, she made it very clear how important the climate issue is to her personally. She is the woman of subtle messages, not loud sayings, the messages got through. She always knew what I stand for, that I’m the one fighting for this issue. She spoke to me specifically a few times and it became clear that she knows very well that the CDU can only win another election in the future if it makes its own clear offer on climate policy. I also have good contact with Friedrich Merz, this personal address and the advice from the top management to the younger generation of the party is important and, for me, makes the CDU what it is.
How is it going for you personally in the CDU? Your work is currently voluntary.
I wouldn’t get up in the morning for power alone. I want to change something in terms of content, my passion is design and my core topic is climate protection. But everything in its time, I’m concentrating on completing my legal education, the second state exam is still to come. The CDU has strong women, we have to pull together and push into the leadership bodies at state and federal level. That’s the only way we can make a difference.
Franca Lehfeldt spoke to Wiebke Winter