After the disaster in the federal election, the CDU wants to reposition itself with a new basic program. Presidium member Jens Spahn even sees his party facing a new era.
Shortly before the CDU party conference, presidium member Jens Spahn advocated a self-confident course in order to get along without the SPD and the Greens when forming a future government. “We want a bourgeois politics, a politics that values performance, that is based on values, that relies on a market economy. And that goes badly with the Greens and the SPD. These are always compromises to the left,” said Spahn to the German Press Agency Berlin. In party leader Friedrich Merz’s first re-election on Monday, he expects “a strong result, with a lot of tailwind and support” for the chairman.
Spahn demanded that the Union must compete in the federal election with five, or a maximum of ten, specific points. It’s about tax relief, the abolition of citizens’ money, the reversal of the heating law and the limitation of irregular migration. “We have to take these clear positions, which make it clear that when we govern, they will come exactly like that.” If the Union were to take responsibility and fail to implement its most important points, “that might be the last shot of the democratic center.” The announcement must be: “No coalition without these points being implemented.”
Spahn called the party conference an intermediate stage on the way to the federal election next year. “The fact that we are so strong again has a lot to do with Friedrich Merz.” In surveys, the CDU/CSU have long been at 30 percent, despite much criticism of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) traffic light government, and Allensbach at 32.5 percent. In the 2021 election, the Union only achieved 24.1 percent. The CDU politician emphasized: “With the new basic program we are essentially ushering in a new Christian-democratic era. That will be the signal from the party conference.”
“CDU boss is always a natural candidate for chancellor”
When asked whether a very good result for Merz in his re-election would also be a preliminary decision in the search for a candidate for chancellor, Spahn replied that Merz and CSU leader Markus Söder would make a proposal together in the fall. “But of course a CDU chairman is always a natural candidate for chancellor,” he added. In addition to Merz, Söder and the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst are also considered possible Union candidates for chancellor.
When asked whether he expected similar taunts from Söder against Merz in the dispute over the K question as in 2021 against the then CDU leader Armin Laschet, Spahn said: “Everyone I know in Bavaria and in Germany is in the Union wants us to win the election next year, to replace the traffic lights. And everyone will help, including Markus Söder. Everyone in the leadership of the Union wanted shared success. “We want to have the chancellor again from 2025. That has to be esprit de corps. And anyone who doesn’t help that get across will have to answer a few questions.”
A swipe at Scholz
When asked whether it was a disadvantage that Merz had no government experience, Spahn replied: “He can draw on a broad range of political and economic experience.” Merz also leads the largest opposition faction and party. “Incidentally, you can see from Olaf Scholz that even government experience as mayor of Hamburg, i.e. as prime minister, and finance minister does not necessarily make a good chancellor.”
“Greens have to change quite a bit”
With a view to the Union’s possible power options after the 2025 federal election, Spahn is skeptical about cooperation with the Greens and the SPD. “With these federal Greens who are so re-ideologizing, I currently don’t see how cooperation can work,” he said, referring to the nuclear phase-out. Spahn added: “If the Greens want to be able to form a coalition again, they have to change quite a bit.”
He is promoting “that we get out of this logic that we always think of the SPD and the Greens first when it comes to governing,” emphasized Spahn. “We as the CDU/CSU have to become so strong that we can govern without the SPD and the Greens and become so strong that we can regain trust from those who might want to vote for the AfD out of frustration.” Those who vote for the AfD make a left-wing coalition more likely.
When asked whether the only partner would then be the FDP, which is currently hovering around five percent in surveys, Spahn said that there was a similar starting point in the 2013 election. At that time, the FDP was thrown out of the Bundestag. At 41.5 percent, the Union only missed the absolute majority by five mandates. This shows him that such a constellation is possible again. But he doesn’t expect the party conference to discuss coalition issues. It’s about your own strength and your own profile. “Coalition election campaigns are certainly not carried out in the opposition.”
