Berlin (dts) – According to the party leadership, Friedrich Merz was confirmed as party leader with “around 90 percent” at the CDU federal party conference in Berlin on Monday.
In fact, he received 873 votes, 89,8 percent of 972 valid votes, while another 9 delegates cast an invalid vote. In his first election in January 2022, he was elected with an approval rating of 94,6 percent, following a member survey at the time.
Merz had already addressed the delegates on Monday morning in a speech lasting around 90 minutes. CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann had announced in advance that Merz would give a “statesmanlike” speech - which meant that it sometimes seemed like an application speech for the office of Chancellor.
The CDU leader worked on several issues that the Union wanted to address in government responsibility and at the same time invoked commonality with its sister party, the CSU. He also criticized the traffic light coalition, especially the Greens, but overall Merz held back.
Among the topics he addressed was social policy. Merz promised to abolish citizens' money and replace it with new basic security. With regard to the Union's environmental policy, he said that it was the opposite of what the traffic light was trying to achieve. “Above all, it is the opposite of what the Greens want and do in environmental policy,” said Merz. “We don’t want to regulate and direct, we want to create good framework conditions.” Germany is a “climate policy ghost rider” – this “ghost ride” will be stopped.
With a view to the European elections, Merz said that the European Union is not where it should be. Although many crises have been overcome under EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), a lot more still needs to be done “for our and Ukrainian security”.
He currently sees the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg as a particular challenge. “These state elections will not be a walk in the park for us,” he said. “We will fight for the majority for first place.” And in these election campaigns we will primarily deal with the AfD. “We are taking up the fight with this party,” said Merz.
