CDU retreat opens at 1 p.m. as lawmaker questions ban on working with AfD
About 25 members of the CDU presidium meet from midday to weigh the fallout from election defeats. In Welt am Sonntag, party figures call for a new course, including on the AfD.
Archive image · Photo: Chrischerf / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped and resized)
The leadership of Germany's Christian Democrats meets in Berlin at 1 p.m. on Sunday for a two-day retreat. About 25 presidium members are taking part, according to the German Press Agency. They are to discuss the consequences of three lost state elections, whether to continue the reform course on pensions, long-term care and health, and how to deal with the far-right AfD and the Left party. Former President Joachim Gauck is invited as a dinner guest.
Florian Oest, a federal lawmaker from Saxony, told Welt am Sonntag: "The rigid incompatibility resolutions are not getting us anywhere." Deputy parliamentary group leader Günter Krings sees "no reason" to soften the current line, according to the dts news agency. Hesse's state premier Boris Rhein told the same paper: "We must take care of all the issues that matter to ordinary people."
The CDU is polling below 20% in several national surveys, down from 28.5% in the 2025 federal election. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania it failed to enter a state parliament for the first time, and in Berlin the Left overtook it. The outcome of the retreat is seen as open.