CSU conference: Söder warns of a 'blue wave', threatens Berlin over federal funds
Opening his party's conference in Munich, Bavarian leader Söder said mainstream parties were 'in the middle of a hurricane' and threatened to cut Berlin off from state revenue-sharing if a leftist coalition forms.
Archive image · Photo: Michael Lucan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de (cropped and resized)
CSU leader Markus Söder painted a bleak picture of German politics as he opened his party's two-day conference in Munich on Friday. "The blue wave is rolling, the red front is coming. The elections in the east were a disaster," the Bavarian premier said, according to the German news agency dpa. "This is now about the very existence of the big-tent parties."
Söder renewed his call for firewalls against both the far right and the far left. If a coalition of the Left Party, the Greens and the SPD takes power in Berlin, he wants to push, together with Baden-Württemberg and Hesse, for an "extremist clause" in the system of financial transfers between the states, summed up in the slogan "No cash for extremists." Referring to a possible AfD-led government in Saxony-Anhalt, he said: "We are not prepared to leave Germany and Bavaria to the radicals."
Delegates are debating a main motion titled "Protect democracy. Defend freedom. Shape the future." Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz is expected as a guest.