The Values Union founded a party on a boat and out of the public eye. Former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Maaßen wants to run for the presidency. According to him, the party should fill a gap between the Union and the AfD.
As announced, the conservative association WertUnion, which has long been close to the CDU, has founded a party that will move to the right of the CDU and CSU in terms of content. Several participants in the founding meeting confirmed to the dpa news agency that the party had been founded. Accordingly, the former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, and his supporters had gathered on a ship on the Rhine near Remagen.
A spokesman had previously stated that the founding act would be carried out behind closed doors at an unspecified location. A later party conference “will of course be public”. According to previous information, a statute and a program should also be decided. According to the information, a press conference was originally planned following the founding act. However, “in view of announced protests,” the party will refrain from doing so.
The party is said to have been founded on this excursion ship in Remagen.
Maaßen says he wants to run for party leadership. The association set the course for the founding of the party in January at a general meeting in Erfurt by transferring the naming rights.
due to criticism right-wing populist Testify
Maaßen was a member of the CDU for years and was President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution from 2012 to 2018. In 2023 he became chairman of the Values Union. The now 61-year-old also came under increasing criticism within his party for provocative and right-wing populist statements.
A party expulsion process was initiated last year. Maaßen anticipated this in January by leaving the CDU. He recently made it public that his former employer, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, had stored data about him in the area of right-wing extremism.
Running in state elections in September
The new party describes itself as “conservative-liberal”. It is the second prominent new foundation in 2024. At the beginning of the year, the Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) alliance of the former left-wing politician had already formed as a party. According to representatives of the ValuesUnion, the new party will run in the state elections in September in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, but not in the European elections in June.
In an interview broadcast on Friday evening, Maaßen told broadcaster tv.berlin that the ValuesUnion wanted to fill the gap between the classic CDU/CSU, which had abandoned the path, and the AfD, which had become too radical. “We stand for classic bourgeois values that have made Germany strong and that ultimately shaped the CDU.” The Values Union is for freedom, the rule of law, democracy, tolerance, but also for the state to withdraw from people’s lives.