CDU in crisis: Merz's party leadership begins two-day retreat today
After its September election defeats, the CDU presidium meets on Sunday and Monday. Ahead of the talks, a row has broken out in the Union over the "firewall" against the AfD.
Archive image · Photo: Ansgar Koreng / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (cropped and resized)
The CDU's presidium, which has about 25 members, begins a two-day retreat at 1 p.m. on Sunday. According to dpa, the party faces possibly the worst crisis in its history: it has lost three state elections and polls below 20 percent. At the end of September the CDU was voted out of a state parliament for the first time, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Former President Joachim Gauck is expected as a guest in the evening. On Monday, Chancellor and party leader Friedrich Merz and General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann are due to present the results.
Ahead of the meeting, the Union has been arguing over how to deal with the AfD. Saxon MP Florian Oest told Welt am Sonntag that "rigid incompatibility resolutions" were getting the party nowhere. Guido Heuer from Saxony-Anhalt said the CDU had "walled itself in" with the firewall while the fire kept burning behind it; he wants clear red lines on policy but rules out coalitions with the AfD or the Left. Deputy parliamentary leader Günter Krings, by contrast, called it a "bold" claim that the AfD would not have grown without the incompatibility resolution. CSU leader Markus Söder said on ARD's Maischberger that merely repeating the word "firewall" would not work.
Deputy party leader Karin Prien told Bavarian broadcaster BR that the CDU's resolutions rule out cooperation with the AfD and the Left and that everyone must abide by them. General Secretary Hoppermann played down expectations, saying there was no "silver bullet" to fix everything overnight. Thuringia's premier Mario Voigt called for a fresh start focused on the cost of heating, fuel and groceries.