Party leader Friedrich Merz calls for greater commitment to energy security.
(Photo: dpa)
St Ingbert In view of the Russian attack on Ukraine, the CDU is demanding that the federal government do more to ensure energy security and care for refugees from Ukraine.
“We are not emergency nails, we are constructive opposition,” said CDU chairman Friedrich Merz on Saturday in Sankt Ingbert, Saarland, after a two-day retreat by the CDU federal executive board. However, urgently needed proposals from the Federal Government were missing on a whole series of important issues.
These were the most important topics, statements and decisions of the CDU leadership:
Russia
Not all bridges to Russia should be broken, said Merz. “We want to stay in contact with those who want to continue the exchange with us, especially in the cultural field. And we should also continue it from our side, wherever possible.”
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
He emphasized: “Russia is not our enemy.” There is “a despotic government, a criminal regime that is now waging this war of aggression”. According to a unanimously passed decision by the CDU leadership, Putin must be “referred to as what he is: a war criminal.”
The CDU hopes that the Russian population will continue to be “in a good exchange and in a good neighborhood and that maybe someday we will be able to stay in the long run again,” said Merz. The town twinning should not be terminated either.
refugees
It is a “common duty in Europe to take in the refugees from Ukraine”. A central federal crisis management team is now needed to ensure that the refugees are distributed fairly. The federal government must also make central properties available in order to avoid accommodation in gyms and schools.
energy security
When it comes to gas, oil and coal, Germany is very dependent on Russia delivering, said Merz. “We have to assume a scenario that these deliveries will be reduced or even interrupted.” In this case, “all options would have to be examined with an open mind as to how energy security can be guaranteed now, for the next winter and in the years to come”.
Merz expressed reservations about extending the operating times of the remaining nuclear power plants in Germany in order to ensure energy security. It was a mistake to phase out nuclear energy in 2011. But this cannot be reversed, he said.
Re-entering the nuclear power plants that are still in operation, which are to be shut down at the end of the year, will be very difficult in every respect. It is open whether this is possible. If the federal government actually wants to phase out lignite-fired power generation, other safe sources of energy are needed: “The tasks here lie with the federal government.”
The CDU is currently against renouncing gas and oil imports from Russia, said Merz. “But we are open, if this war continues, if the atrocities against the civilian population should continue, that we would then have to resort to this remedy.”
armed forces
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has “unrestricted support” for the plan to provide 100 billion euros for investments in the Bundeswehr. But there is no leeway “for other projects, other plans or other ideas that one or the other may have always had”.
The money must be “put entirely into equipment, training and the structure of the Bundeswehr”. “Some omissions from the past” would have to be corrected. “But we are not willing to have these omissions attributed exclusively to us.”
opposition role
According to Merz, the CDU wants to critically examine proposals from the federal government in the opposition. But: “For the federal government, we are not the reserve bank from which they can catch up on substitute players if they no longer bring their own players onto the pitch.
The federal government must continue to have its own majority in parliament on important issues in the future.” There could be reasons for changes to the Basic Law: “And then we’ll see if we see the need.”
More: Friedrich Merz wants to keep the “last big promise of the CDU”.