Shortly before the party conference in Augsburg at the weekend, an open dispute broke out in the CSU – namely about the black-green option in a future federal government. First, Manfred Weber, party vice-president and head of the conservative EPP group in the European Parliament, spoke up. He contradicted the categorical exclusion of an alliance with the Greens, as propagated by CSU leader and Prime Minister Markus Söder.
“Democrats must always be able to talk to each other and try to find ways of working together,” Weber told the Germany editorial network. “When it comes to the Greens, the question arises: which Greens? There are Greens who find it difficult to recognize the realities of migration. And there are Greens like Winfried Kretschmann in Baden-Württemberg who want a realistic migration course.” But the Greens would have to clarify whether they wanted to be “connectable in the middle”.
According to media reports, Weber’s sentences triggered harsh reactions from top CSU politicians. Klaus Holetschek, parliamentary group leader in the state parliament, spoke of a “misjudgment”. The Greens’ “ideology” did not fit in with the CSU People’s Party. It is strange that Weber did not comment on the issue in the party executive committee. The CSU regional group leader in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, said that Weber represented “a minority opinion” that would ultimately give the Greens “a bourgeois mantle”. But that is not tragic, since decisions about it are not made in Brussels. CSU General Secretary Martin Huber added: Statements like Weber’s “ultimately endanger mandates in Lower Bavaria.” Speaking to journalists in Munich on Wednesday, Huber renewed the official CSU doctrine that they were “strictly” against the black-green coalition.
Söder will speak at the party conference on Friday. In CSU circles it was said that he would probably reiterate his no to the black-green coalition in his speech. The newly elected candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz is expected in Augsburg on Saturday. The CDU leader has not yet shown himself to be a friend of the black-green coalition, but has avoided a final rejection of the model. The former CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz, who as a political pensioner enjoys a kind of influencer role in social networks, advised Merz Nuremberg NewsIf necessary, to publicly contradict Söder. “As CSU boss, Söder can of course rule out whatever he wants for Bavaria,” said Polenz. The CDU is in coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia, but in Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein with the Greens, and doing so well. Söder’s attitude means that he “wants to chain us, for better or for worse, to a pretty run-down SPD.”
In CSU board circles, the fight against the Greens in the 2025 federal election campaign is called “indispensable” and a “projection surface”. The party is the biggest enemy in Bavaria’s population. If this were not “served”, it would reduce the CSU’s chances of a very strong election result. Even regular voters could look for replacements – from the Free Voters, where Hubert Aiwanger is just waiting to castigate the CSU as a Green Party coddler, and also from the AfD.
Secretary General Huber promised a “strong course setting” for Söder’s speech. This is in line with the party congress’s key proposals on migration, defense and the economy. The turnaround in immigration, as called for by the CSU, includes limiting asylum applications to fewer than 100,000 annually or deportations to Syria and Afghanistan.
What will be atmospherically interesting in Augsburg will be how Söder presents himself to his party friends as a non-chancellor candidate with a permanent place in Bavaria. And the question of how enthusiastically the CSU delegates actually applauded Chancellor candidate Merz. However, Huber expects a “strong signal of unity”.