Young Union congress: Winkel re-elected with 94% – Chancellor Merz speaks today

The Young Union (JU), the youth organisation of the CDU and CSU, has re-elected its chairman Johannes Winkel by a wide margin at its 78th Deutschlandtag congress in Bonn. According to dpa, the 34-year-old lawyer received 265 of 283 valid votes, or 94.3 per cent. In 2024 he had won 90.5 per cent, and 87.0 per cent at his first election in 2022. According to Tagesspiegel it is the strongest result a JU chairman has achieved so far. “Our generation still has big plans with this Union,” Winkel said.

On policy, Winkel focused on pension reform: in his view, its failure would be “a failure from which the federal government could hardly recover”. Winkel ruled out any cooperation with the AfD as long as the party holds ethno-nationalist (“völkisch”) positions and takes extremists into its ranks. “For me this is a question of character, not of poll ratings,” Winkel said. He also attacked Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's premier Manuela Schwesig (SPD), alluding to her former support for Nord Stream 2: “We will certainly not be lectured by Manuela Schwesig.”

The first prominent guest speaker was North Rhine-Westphalia's premier Hendrik Wüst (CDU), seen as a possible successor to Merz, who received a one-and-a-half-minute standing ovation. Referring to Berlin's Left Party, into which “the poison of antisemitism has seeped deeply”, he spoke of “a disgrace for the capital”. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) speaks on Saturday morning; last year he clashed with delegates over the pension package. CSU leader Markus Söder closes the meeting on Sunday. “This is not a chancellor casting,” Winkel said.