Thursday, December 23, 2021
“Will be a firewall”
Merz: AfD cooperation threatens exclusion
Especially with a view to the Eastern associations, the future CDU boss Merz calls for a clear demarcation from the AfD. Anyone who raises their hand to cooperate with the far right has to be prepared for a process of elimination. The 66-year-old strikes an unusually friendly tone towards Angela Merkel.
The designated CDU chairman Friedrich Merz has again spoken out in favor of a sharp demarcation of his party from the AfD and threatens Christian Democrats willing to cooperate with expulsion from the party. “With me there will be a firewall to the AfD,” Merz told the “Spiegel”. “The regional associations, especially in the east, get a crystal clear message from us: If anyone of us raises their hand to work with the AfD, then the next day there will be a party exclusion process.”
He will be very consistent in relation to the AfD from the start, said Merz. “We are not the XYZ party that can go with everyone. We are the CDU.” Franz-Josef Strauss once said that if a jacket was buttoned incorrectly, the top could no longer be corrected. “He was right about that.”
In 2019, the then Saxony-Anhalt CDU deputy parliamentary group leader Ulrich Thomas said that his party should not rule out a coalition with the AfD. Together with Lars-Jörn Zimmer, who also held the post of vice-parliamentary group at the time, he wrote a multi-page “memorandum” in which, according to the “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung”, one could read that voters from the CDU and AfD had similar goals. “We must succeed in reconciling the social with the national,” wrote the two MPs.
Those willing to form a coalition are still in the state parliament
Merz had already rejected a coalition with the AfD. Other party friends also distanced themselves from the statements of Thomas and Zimmer. Both still sit for the CDU in the state parliament, but are no longer members of the top parliamentary group.
When talking to ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, Merz struck friendly tones in an interview with “Spiegel”. “I would be happy if Angela Merkel and the CDU stick together in the future, it will certainly not fail because of me,” said Merz. “Treating each other decently is part of the DNA of our party. The internal climate has been difficult in our country recently. I want to improve it.”
The relationship between Merz and Merkel has long been considered bad. The future chancellor and party leader had replaced Merz as parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag after the federal election in 2002, after she had claimed the post for herself. Merz was then publicly angry about Merkel’s actions and accused her of breaking her word.
Merz: I gave Merkel too little credit
Today Merz admits that he did not appreciate Merkel’s performance in the CDU enough. “We completely underestimated Merkel,” he told Spiegel, referring to the ex-chancellor’s rise. “Take a look at our leadership a good 20 years ago: Kohl, Schäuble, Rühe, Koch, Wulff, Müller. Women played practically no role in leadership back then.” Merkel was “a women’s political pacemaker” for the CDU. Merz warned his CDU against dreaming of an all too rapid rise. “Many of us have not yet understood what it means to be in the opposition,” he said.
Former Federal Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner should play an important role in the party apparatus under him: At the party congress in January, she should be elected federal treasurer of the CDU, according to party circles. The previous CDU treasurer Philipp Murmann is not running again.
Merz was recently chosen by a large majority as the new party leader to succeed Armin Laschet in a CDU membership vote. January to be appointed party chairman. The 66-year-old ex-Union parliamentary group leader warned his party that a way back to the chancellery would not be easy. “Many of us have not yet understood what it means to be in the opposition.”