Laschet takes responsibility for the election results

The party had been split since 2015 and was a “chicken pile” during the election campaign. The party youth takes a similarly blunt assessment of the situation in its lead motion and calls for more clear lines, clear positions, clear candidates.

Junge Union praises the “strong signal” from its federal chairman

Laschet sees it similarly, says: “I almost completely agree.” He knows that his time as a leader politician will soon be over. “I can now wear sneakers,” he says in view of the shoes that were given away here and there by the JU. He received standing and long applause for his openness. You will listen to him for an hour, discuss – and show respect. He is open to the discussion, praises Kuban. “A strong signal.”

One of the fighters is missing in the city of the Peace of Westphalia: Markus Söder. The CSU boss and Prime Minister of Bavaria has canceled his trip. “Speech and discussion” was on his agenda; the organizers of the Young Union’s Germany Day had planned him directly behind Armin Laschet. The Franconian could have replied.

In Münster, however, the CSU boss feared that something similar could happen to him as a week earlier at the JU in Bavaria: a rejection from his own party youth. It was precisely that who had lifted him up four years ago to knock the then CSU chairman Horst Seehofer from the throne.

They no longer want to call him a “draft horse” after he never missed an opportunity in the election campaign to weaken Laschet – and thus the CDU and CSU. So he preferred to speak up via an interview in the “Welt am Sonntag” and said: “We need a new way of working together.” In the evening he went to a musical in Neuschwanstein.

A union council is to reconcile the CDU and CSU

Kuban has proposed a “Union Council” in which the CDU and CSU will in future speak together in a spirit of trust. Laschet also welcomes this in order to prevent the agonizing dispute from the spring about the candidacy for chancellor in the future. “He must reconcile two equal parties and still recognize that one has more members than the other,” he said, making it clear that he sees a reason for the defeat in this. “If you have decided on the spot who is our candidate and then the others who were not elected say yes, but we still have the better one: If you go into elections like this, you don’t win.”

Friedrich Merz had already approved the proposal for a Union Council on Friday evening in his speech to the youngsters of the party. When it comes to the question of party chairmanship, he can also imagine a team instead of a candidate for a fight – if there was a high degree of trust, loyalty and discretion. Then he would like to “get involved and also join”.

Such messages are important at a time when the Union is looking for its position and with it a leader with the necessary authority. Laschet is looking for this team and has to persuade alpha animals such as Merz, Jens Spahn, Ralph Brinkhaus, Norbert Röttgen and Carsten Linnemann to come to an agreement, all of them from North Rhine-Westphalia such as the still head of the country and Prime Minister Laschet. In Düsseldorf he organized a mutual agreement for his successor. Will he make it for the federal government?

He therefore wants to avoid a member survey. Something like that may help in individual cases. In North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg, however, this split, the SPD had been dealing with it for five and a half months. Laschet is promoting consensus and he sees a federal party congress with 1001 delegates as ideally suited for this. It is “a very good tool for mapping the breadth of the party”. The candidates are also said to have already made a lot of phone calls to one another.

After all, there will soon be up-and-coming greats to vote in state elections, such as Daniel Günther in Schleswig-Holstein and Tobias Hans in Saarland or Hendrik Wüst, who will soon rule North Rhine-Westphalia instead of Laschet. “March and May are about important countries. We have to stand together again, ”warns Laschet. He wants to hand the party over to a successor in an orderly fashion.

Laschet relies on quick and clear opposition work

This requires good opposition work in the federal government, Laschet makes clear. The exploratory paper by the SPD, Greens and FDP is “in order”, even if it is unclear in many places. “We will measure them by the deeds, not by twelve pages of exploratory paper.” This is another reason why the Union should quickly regroup.

The traffic light is very popular with people “because they have a familiar space”. In the Union, however, you can read sessions in the live ticker, as with the candidate selection in April. That was “already the beginning of a weakening in the election campaign”. He has now introduced a ban on cell phones. “As long as I am CDU chairman, this cell phone ban applies and I advise everyone else too.”

Merz had previously said that the party had “become a politically difficult restructuring case at risk of insolvency”. Laschet thinks nothing of such analyzes. The party had a good program.

But it is true that the party headquarters must reposition itself in the opposition. “We now have to think things up independently again and cannot rely on the government’s work.” Above all, however, he warns: “Political sentiments can change quickly.” Therefore, “a clear error analysis is important now”, and then as an opposition “wise and to put your finger intelligently in the wound ”.

Jens Spahn’s chances are dwindling

Who will be Laschet’s successor? It remains unclear, but there are tips against who is allowed to speak to Laschet instead of Söder: Jens Spahn. Many in the party have long seen him as critical as Söder. When Merz said: “The three letters CDU have to be in the foreground and not I”, he means Spahn, as some are sure of at Germany Day. Merz is only ready for a team without Spahn.

The ambitious Münsterländer, who has been sitting in the Bundestag for half his life and thus belongs to the establishment despite his only 41 years of age, is considered to be one who likes to share information from meetings with the outside world. But Spahn wants to present himself as a team player on this day, as he was actually part of the election campaign team around Laschet. “It’s about team and corps spirit”; he says. “If it is better to leave out the cell phone, then so be it.”

Laschet is conciliatory on this day, also towards the CSU, despite all cross-cuts and indiscretions. He urges the Junge Union to promote this unit. That is why he once again takes the side of Wolfgang Schäuble, whom the Bavarian JU chief suggested resigning from the Bundestag mandate.

He has been in the Bundestag for 49 years, is considered the architect of German unity, survived an assassination attempt and later co-invented the debt brake. “Such a deserving man does not deserve to be pushed out of office by anyone.” Then Laschet hits the table loudly for the only time. “That is also part of the style and the way you deal with it.” Once again, he earned a lot of long applause.

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