Friday, May 7th, 2021
“It depends on the final phase”
Merz does not think Baerbock is ripe for the chancellery
The polls of the Union are poor, the strongest political force in Germany are the Greens. However, their top candidate Baerbock is unsuitable as Chancellor, claims CDU politician Merz. He defends the sluggish election campaign start of his own candidate Laschet.
The CDU politician Friedrich Merz has accused the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock of lack of political experience. “As a citizen of our country, I would not like to hand over the management of this country to someone who has neither government experience nor professional experience outside of politics and who also has no international experience,” Merz told the “Bild” newspaper. Baerbock was nominated as the Greens’ candidate for chancellor in mid-April.
In terms of content, Merz still sees major problems for cooperation with the Greens, said the former Union parliamentary group leader. The party wanted “a massive expansion of state activity, financed, of course, with significantly higher taxes and duties.” That is why the road to a government with the Union is “quite long” for the Greens.
Merz sees no problem in the use of the gender star in official Green papers such as a possible coalition agreement. “If the Greens absolutely want that, then there are two copies,” said the CDU politician. It depends on the content. “The rest is packaging.” The Greens chairmen Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck presented the draft for their election manifesto in mid-March. The final decision is to be taken at a federal party conference in mid-June. The CDU, on the other hand, has not yet presented a program for the federal election in autumn.
“Have to work very hard”
Merz classifies the sluggish election campaign start of Union chancellor candidate Armin Laschet as not very problematic. “Strategic patience is smart, especially in turbulent times. It depends on the final phase,” he said. At the same time, Merz set the bar high for the Union in the federal election in September. “If we want to win the general election, we have to achieve over 30 percent in all of Germany, and a good 40 percent in Bavaria.” For this, the CDU and CSU would have to “work together very hard”.
In connection with the power struggle decided by CDU boss Laschet with CSU boss Markus Söder for the Union chancellor candidacy, the polls of the Union have collapsed massively. According to the latest RTL / ntv trend barometer from Wednesday, the Union improved slightly by one percentage point, but remains only the second strongest political force behind the Greens, who come to 28 percent, with a gap of five percentage points. If the Chancellor could be elected directly, according to the Forsa survey, 31 percent would opt for Baerbock and only 17 percent for Laschet.
In the event of an election victory for the Union after the federal election, Merz sees no scope for tax cuts. “At the end of the year we will have to make a cash fall in the public budgets and the social security funds to see what is possible and what is not,” said the ex-Union faction leader of the newspaper. Merz did not want to comment on his personal ambitions for political office. He stands for the Hochsauerlandkreis as a member of parliament. Everything else is not on the agenda.
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