Berlin Was there ever another federal chairman of the CDU than Friedrich Merz? Anyone who takes a look at the CDU’s online presence these days reads about “Team CDU”. Above all, the likeness of the 66-year-old can be found – and not just once.
Since the end of January, Sauerland Merz has officially led the party and he’s already omnipresent, while his critics remain silent. The “Team Merz” is also noticeably reticent: members of the federal board of directors as well as their deputies. The party vices should soon stand for topics: Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer as the voice of the East or the members of the Bundestag Silvia Breher and Andreas Jung as experts on families and agriculture as well as the environment and climate, the Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Education Katrin Prien for her department.
However, not a day goes by when Merz does not appear in the media with a statement. After closing ranks with his sister party at the closed meeting of the CSU deputies, he criticized the monetary policy of the European Central Bank in the face of rising inflation via the Handelsblatt.
At the beginning of the week, he instructed the parliamentary group to submit an application next week and to bring it to the Bundestag: In it, the Union parliamentary group will call on the traffic light government to comprehensively relieve people of energy costs – and not just with a heating cost subsidy or the EEG surcharge . The parliamentary group will also elect Merz as its chairman. The role of leader of the opposition will be his main stage – just like it was 20 years ago.
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But he is already using every opportunity. When he appeared at the conference of the Union parliamentary group leaders in Saarbrücken, he had already arrived on Sunday, had listened in a friendly atmosphere, had gone from table to table, presented his plans and asked for opinions. It was “leadership through the word”, as it was later called.
Inaugural visits to Brussels and Paris
On Monday he used the press conference and distanced himself from the obligation to vaccinate in care facilities. His party friend, NRW Minister of Health Karl-Josef Laumann, had signaled to him that the traffic light law could not be implemented.
Merz also announced that he wanted to talk “without prejudice” about energy from gas and nuclear power and immediately sent a signal to Brussels and Paris. The committed European, who himself sat in the European Parliament for five years, is expected there on Wednesday and Thursday for inaugural visits: to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Donald Tusk, the chairman of the European People’s Party, as well as to the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. A dinner with conservative presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse in Paris will round off his first trip abroad in office.
The following applies to everything: a clear edge against the traffic light coalition in Berlin and clear messages. Merz takes care of Europe, Merz calls for a stance in the Ukraine conflict, he criticizes Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD)’s visit to US President Joe Biden eight weeks after his swearing-in as “too late”.
“Merz sets the pace and he also wants to keep up the pace,” says the Union leadership. Finally, the state chancellery in Saarland (March) and in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia (May) must be defended and in Lower Saxony conquered (October). The results will be his interim balance.
So far, the results are impressive: while 64 percent of citizens are dissatisfied with the work of the new coalition, according to the most recent Forsa survey, the Union is ahead of the SPD for the first time since September.
In March, the Federal Executive will meet for two days in Saarbrücken and thus strengthen the CDU Prime Minister Tobias Hans. It will be the next stage that Merz prepares for himself and Hans to send messages through the media in the final spurt of the election campaign.
The social wing is left behind
His companions are happy. “Things are going really well so far. He keeps an eye on the issues and the state elections”. And also in the distant future: At the first meeting of the new presidium and federal board at the beginning of the week, Merz set up a basic program commission, which is headed by party vice Carsten Linnemann. His deputy, however, was the Thuringian parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt. State elections are scheduled there in 2024, as well as in Brandenburg and Saxony. The program should therefore be available in spring 2024, just in time for the eastern election campaign and early enough before the 2025 federal election.
What he failed to do, however, was to appoint a representative of the social wing as second deputy. At the request of the chairman, Serap Güler became a woman.
More: Friedrich Merz expands his power