In his speech at the CDU party conference, Friedrich Merz tries to sound like a statesman. He was confirmed as party leader with 90 percent approval.
Applause from right and left: Friedrich Merz (M.) with general secretaries Carsten Linnemann and Christina Stumpp Photo: Stefan Zeitz/imago
SEDAN taz | The 1,001 delegates want nothing more urgent than to finally applaud with all their hearts. But Friedrich Merz does not make it easy for him at the CDU party conference. On Monday, the president is concerned about his re-election as party president and hopes to gain as much support as possible for it. In the end it's clear: it's his reserved speech that benefits his approval ratings at the end of the day. With around 90 percent, Merz was confirmed in his position as CDU president.
For the CDU, its meeting in Berlin is about the heart of the matter. Two and a half years ago, after the bitter defeat in the federal elections, the party took the unusual and shameful path towards opposition. A lot has happened since then: the party worked hard to develop a new basic program, won state elections, fired a general secretary, flirted with the AfD and then distanced itself from it.
Behind all this was Merz's desire to make the party more conservative and to overturn Angela Merkel's legacy. But it's crazy: although the Union is now the strongest force in the polls, it seems to be stuck at around 30 percent. Not enough for some who hope the unpopularity of the traffic light government will contribute more to the Conservatives' tally.
Merz and Carsten Linnemann, elected general secretary of the CDU at the party conference with a good 91 percent, see themselves at the end of a process of internal renewal of the party. “It was a really good and exciting moment for our party,” says Merz about work on the basic program that will be decided at the party conference on Tuesday. He also includes projects such as reducing asylum procedures in Germany, which 700 theologians criticized as “anti-Christian” in an open letter on Monday.
The Union Party ConferenceThe meeting, for which 1,001 delegates will gather starting Monday at the Estrel hotel on Berlin's Neuköllner Sonnenallee, lasts three days. After the election of party leader Friedrich Merz and the entire federal executive committee on Monday, the new basic program will be adopted on Tuesday. The hot phase of the European election campaign begins on Wednesday. The election will take place on June 9.
The basic program It consists of 72 pages and is the fourth in the history of the CDU (the last one dates from 2007). More than 2,000 requests to modify the program were received, sending clearly conservative signals. Beforehand there were different assessments about what could be particularly discussed: the reintroduction of compulsory military service and the introduction of a mandatory year of social service could be explosive. The issues of nuclear energy, the debt brake, dominant culture and Muslims in Germany could also cause controversy.
CSU head Markus Söder will deliver his long-awaited speech on Tuesday afternoon. After all, Söder not only likes to make fun of Merz, but also clearly speaks out against a coalition with the Greens, an option that Merz explicitly leaves open to the Union in the federal government.
Three curious facts: Berlin Culture Senator Joe Chialo will DJ at the party on Tuesday night. The CDU also wants to create a Späti because, as general secretary Carsten Linnemann says, it belongs to Berlin. And if three days together in the hallway aren't enough, you can also go running together on Tuesday at seven in the morning.
Light applause for Merz
Merz only briefly addresses this point in his nearly hour and a half speech. “We need immigration, no one will deny it,” says the party leader to cautious applause in the room. But “irregular immigration” is overloading the ability to integrate into schools and the housing market.
But Merz doesn't talk about plans to build housing or more money for child care. He receives thunderous applause when he speaks against the AfD, where he for the first time speaks out loud: “We will defend ourselves against this force of decomposition. It has been known for more than two years that the AfD is from Germany.” Russia has support, shouts Merz. “We declare war on all those who want to destroy our values and our European Union from within.”
Even the smallest rhetorical comments provoke applause; But with comments against the federal government, Merz saves more than usual. There is huge applause in the room when Merz says that the traffic light is turning in terms of climate policy, even contrary to his own claims. “Germany is the wrong driver in terms of climate policy and we will put an end to this ghost ride at the latest next year.”
Merz also repeats another fundamental demand of the Union, with which the party wants to reverse the traffic light policy. “We want to abolish the so-called citizen traffic light money in this way.”
Competition on the road to the chancellor candidacy: Hendrik Wüst (right) and Daniel Günther Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
Dennis Radtke considers the choice of words at this moment “not dramatic”, as the MEP told taz after Merz's speech. Radtke is a representative of the labor wing of the CDU. He says Merz gave a speech that was “very centrist and very pro-state.” And he credits the CDU president for speaking out in favor of the Union's European policy and supporting the leading candidate, Ursula von der Leyen.
The same is the opinion of delegate Fee Roth, who like Radtke comes from Bochum and is attending a federal conference of the CDU party for the first time as a delegate. The 28-year-old considers herself a “progressive liberal” and she says she joined the CDU thanks to Angela Merkel. “Merz tried very hard to capture the political center in her speech,” she says. That is the “recipe for success” of the party.
Merz's short fuse
A relaxed atmosphere reigns in the halls of the party congress. The CDU met in a huge hotel in the southeast of Berlin's Neukölln district; of all places in Sonnenallee, where after the fire brigade operations on New Year's Eve 2023, the entire CDU executive committee raised spirits against the “New Year's Eve rioters”. The employees of the CDU party headquarters have done everything possible to paint Neukölln differently. The lobby of the Estrel hotel is illuminated in the new turquoise color of the CDU and the slogans of the party, which once again wants to “lead responsibly”, are printed on huge cubes.
Merz already knows the hotel quite well. Here he announced two and a half years ago that he would run for the party leadership for the third time. At that time he had Mario Czaja, an East German and member of the party's social wing, as his possible general secretary. At that time, Merz uttered phrases like this: “The CDU must modernize,” and he also talked a lot about social justice. There's not much left of it.
Together with his new general secretary, Linnemann, he wants to position the party further to the right: in addition to statements on asylum procedures, the basic program also includes a commitment to the dominant culture, a distancing from Islam and also the possibility of returning to nuclear energy.
In the past, Merz had often attracted attention with populist statements. She smeared Arab children as “little pashas” and Ukrainian refugees as “social tourists.” She accused the refugees of taking away dentist appointments from Germans. He declared that the Greens are his main opponent, although the CDU works successfully with the party in the federal states and can depend on them also as a coalition partner after the federal elections. He declared that the CDU is a “substantial alternative for Germany” and in the ZDF summer interview gave the impression that cooperation with the AfD on local issues was fine.
“We want to abolish citizens' money for traffic lights again”
With all this, he repeatedly confirmed the image that he was a man with a big ego and a short fuse. He has how short this is. Mirror I enjoyed it again in a cover story over the weekend. In it, the magazine describes how Merz became furious and even threatened to throw everything away after North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst published a debate article in the FAZ titled “The heart of the CDU beats in the medium”, shortly before a small party conference. . What Merz – not wrongly – saw as an attack.
Shortly after, Merz replaced his unfortunate General Secretary Czaja. His successor, Linnemann, described this moment, when the story was already circulating in the Berlin bubble, as a “crucial point.” In recent months, Merz has become calmer and has barely made any mistakes lately. The only question is: Can Merz keep it up? When the pressure is high during the election campaign?
Because for Merz that is clear: this Monday afternoon is not only about his first re-election as federal president of the CDU. It is also about the question: Can this man be chancellor? At the moment it all comes down to him. But the two opponents are still lurking: the agile CSU chief Markus Söder, who many in the CDU trust to attack if the opportunity presents itself. And Hendrik Wust. On Monday he once again underlined the importance of this center for the CDU. But Wüst also says: “Let's support Friedrich Merz together.”