With its new basic program, the CDU wants to escape arbitrariness and stand out from the other parties again. Party leaders Merz and Linnemann presented the draft in several cities. Chemnitz is the most difficult date so far. In the end, the party leader speaks a kind of power word.
A few minutes after Friedrich Merz began his speech in Chemnitz, he paused and said: “It’s more subdued here this evening than yesterday in Hanover, than the day before yesterday in Mainz. You can tell that they’re waiting a bit. What are they doing? “Well, what are they asking me?” The CDU leader thus captured the mood that evening in the West Saxon city quite well. The reaction to the party leadership’s show, one might almost say, is muted.
Merz came to present the party’s new draft of its basic program together with General Secretary Carsten Linnemann and Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. This was created through painstaking work last year and is intended to make the party more distinguishable from the SPD and the Greens and to provide answers to current questions – 17 years after the last basic program in 2007.
The unofficial mission was also to give the CDU campaigners a little ammunition before the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. The draft is a good 70 pages long. In this, the CDU shows itself to be a conservative people’s party of the center that embraces everyone, including Muslims and homosexuals, but also takes up some conservative favorite issues that had faded away in the Angela Merkel era. Nuclear power should be an option again, compulsory service is required and foreigners should please recognize “our” dominant culture. Especially on migration issues, the party is moving even further away from Merkel’s course than the Chancellor herself did in the years after the 2015/16 refugee crisis.
The sentence of the then Federal President and CDU politician Christian Wullf: “Islam belongs to Germany” no longer applies, now it only says: “Muslims who share our values belong to Germany”. The party advocates asylum centers at the EU’s external borders and deportations to safe third countries. The right to asylum in its current form is being questioned.
“Germany tour” through six cities
The draft has been in place for some time, and now the party leadership is on a “Germany tour” to present the program to the members and test the reactions. Chemnitz was the third appointment after Mainz on Tuesday and Hanover on Wednesday, followed by Cologne, Stuttgart and Berlin. The Saxon city is the only destination in East Germany that is the most exciting stop. Because that’s where the most is at stake. The AfD could become the strongest force in the elections in the three federal states mentioned.
It is the most difficult place for the CDU, which is also reflected in the fact that some of Kretschmer’s statements can hardly be distinguished from AfD phrases – for example when he calls for Russian gas to be purchased again, Ukraine or not. But he’s holding back on that this evening. It wouldn’t have fit with Merz’s speech either. He left no doubt about his willingness to help the country attacked by Russia.
Given the tense situation in the Free State, the questions from the audience were almost more exciting than the speeches from the party leaders. It was pointedly remarked that the new draft program talks a lot about the Christian view of humanity, but that God himself and faith play no role. Or that more should be done for entrepreneurs and that performance should be worth it again. So far, so typical CDU, whether in East, West, South or North. But there were also other sounds in Chemnitz. For example, the question was asked: If there is a firewall for the AfD, why isn’t there also one for the Greens?
At least in Berlin, Merz rarely if ever gets asked questions like that. In the East, however, black versus green is the real opposite for many CDU members in many places, as political scientist Benjamin Höhne said in an interview with ntv.de. However, Merz stuck to his line of keeping a coalition with the Greens and SPD open. “We have to say clearly what we want,” he says, looking ahead to the federal election campaign. He cites Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein as a role model. After the election, he was able to choose his partners and ultimately chose the SPD – to the surprise of the Greens. The SPD made so many concessions that it internally referred to the coalition agreement as a “deed of surrender”.
Almost a power word
“Please let us conduct the party political debate with mutual respect. And yes, the Greens are also a party of the political center.” As he says this, someone shouts “No!” between. “Yes,” says Merz. To deny oneself the ability to form a coalition from the outset “in the broad center” is out of the question for us as “Christian Democrats and for me as their chairman.” With this, the party leader almost speaks out and immediately puts out the anti-green fire that flares up. He remains in control of the situation, although the question will probably continue to concern him. Simply because, as one questioner says, if you vote for the CDU you have to fear that you will then get the Greens right away.
But this evening’s main focus will be on the basic program. In his speech, Merz clearly differentiated himself from the AfD, as he did in Mainz and Hanover. Last summer he was still saying that the CDU was the real alternative for Germany, but now he says that the party is “relegation for Germany.” He calls the Thuringian AfD leader Björn Höcke a right-wing extremist. It is not without reason that the commitment to patriotism is included in the draft program. “Patriots love their country,” says Merz. The difference with nationalists is that they hate all other countries. Merz received only cautious applause for the fact that there is no longer a separate chapter on East Germany in the basic program. The reason: It is a program for everyone, so that is no longer necessary.
The topic of migration does not play a major role for Merz, but it does play a major role in the program before him. The Saxon Prime Minister Kretschmer and the Thuringian CDU leader Mario Voigt talk about this with Philipp Amthor, member of the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and Gitta Connemann, the chairwoman of the MIT medium-sized business association. Kretschmer and Voigt describe Merkel’s policies in the 2015/2016 refugee crisis as a mistake that has been corrected. According to surveys, the AfD is the strongest force in both federal states with a good 30 percent each, with the CDU behind in each case. Relatively close in Saxony, quite clear in Thuringia.
Merz was not wrong when he said that the CDU had done its homework with the basic program after the 2021 election defeat. Of course, hardly anyone outside the party reads the program. But internally, the very process of writing it seems to have had an invigorating effect on the upper party levels. Kretschmer seemed very impressed and spoke of a “team building measure”. Whether this enthusiasm spreads to the entire party is another question. In Chemnitz it was more like polite applause.