CDU crisis retreat ends: Merz and Hoppermann to present results today
After three lost state elections, the CDU leadership meets for a second day. Afterwards Merz and General Secretary Hoppermann plan to set out how the party wants to get out of its crisis.
Archive image · Photo: Ansgar Koreng / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (cropped and resized)
The CDU leadership concludes its two-day crisis retreat in Berlin on Monday. Afterwards, Chancellor and party leader Friedrich Merz and General Secretary Franziska Hoppermann plan to present the results, the dpa news agency reports. No results were available at the time of writing. On Sunday the roughly 25-member presidium discussed a paper of concrete measures intended to bring the party closer to people's everyday lives. According to Table.Briefings, it was initially unclear whether a formal resolution would be adopted on Monday.
The trigger is three heavy defeats: the CDU lost almost 20 percentage points in Saxony-Anhalt, dropped out of a state parliament for the first time in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and was overtaken by the Left in Berlin. Several national polls put the Union below 20 percent, down from 28.5 percent in the 2025 federal election. Former Federal President Joachim Gauck, who has rejected calls for Merz to resign, was invited to dinner. "If he wanted to do that now, he would be a complete political idiot," Gauck had said, according to ZDF.