The parties position themselves for the Bundestag election. Follow all developments in the news blog.
Almost three weeks before the Bundestag election, the Union’s crash continues, according to a Forsa survey. CDU / CSU lose two points in the RTL / n-tv trend barometer compared to the previous week and for the first time slide below the 20 percent mark to 19 percent. The SPD can improve its survey by two points to 25 percent. The Greens land at 17 percent, one point less than before. The FDP rises by one point to 13 percent. The AfD lands at eleven percent, the left at six percent.
This means that no two-party alliance would have a majority – neither red-green nor the grand coalition, nor black-yellow. Several three-way alliances would be possible after the federal election – a traffic light consisting of the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, a left-wing alliance red-green-red and coalitions made up of the Union, the Greens and the FDP as well as the SPD, the Union and the FDP.
The Social Democrats continue to benefit from the popularity of their candidate Olaf Scholz. This comes in the Chancellor preference to 30 percent, one point more than last. Armin Laschet from the Union falls to nine percent, two points less. Green candidate Annalena Baerbock remains at 15 percent. (07.09.2021)
Survey: CSU slips below 30 percent in Bavaria
According to a new poll for the federal election, the CSU has now fallen below the 30 percent mark. In the “voter check” of the program “17:30 Sat.1 Bayern”, only 29 percent of those surveyed in the Free State said that they would vote for the Christian Socialists in the federal election. In the previous survey in July, the CSU came up with 35 percent.
The Greens are therefore at 18 percent in the Free State (minus two), the SPD improved from nine to 15 percent. The FDP came to 13 percent (plus one), the AfD to ten percent (plus one). The free voters lost slightly and came in at six percent. Those responsible for the survey emphasize that every second voter is still undecided.
SPD man Olaf Scholz was also able to make up ground on the candidate question and is now in the lead. In response to the question “If you could make a personal decision about it all by yourself, who would you most like to be the Federal Chancellor?” 37 percent named the Federal Minister of Finance (plus 13). Union top candidate Armin Laschet fell to second place with 22 percent (minus six), Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock remained unchanged at 14 percent.
In principle, election surveys only reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and are not a prognosis for the outcome of the election. You are also always fraught with uncertainties. Among other things, declining party ties and increasingly short-term voting decisions, according to opinion research institutes, make it difficult to weight the data collected. (07.09.2021)
Baerbock calls for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany
Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock wants to press for the withdrawal of the US atomic bombs from Germany in the event of an election victory. With a view to the disarmament negotiations between the USA and Russia, a new federal government must make it clear: “Of course, American nuclear weapons must also be part of this disarmament here in Germany and in Europe as a whole,” said Baerbock in the ARD “election arena” https: // www .sueddeutsche.de / politik /. “We currently have a window of opportunity and we have to use that and no longer pursue a foreign policy that ducks away when in doubt.”
At the end of July, the nuclear powers USA and Russia started new disarmament talks that had previously been agreed at a summit between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Together with other NATO states such as Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey, Germany is involved in NATO’s nuclear deterrent through the stationing of nuclear weapons. According to estimates, around 20 atomic bombs are still stored at Büchel Air Base in the Eifel, which are to be dropped by Bundeswehr fighter jets in an emergency. In addition to the Greens and the Left, the party and parliamentary group leaders of the SPD have also spoken out in favor of withdrawing US nuclear weapons. The Union is strictly against it. (07.09.2021)
Merz urges the FDP to reject the traffic light coalition
The CDU economic politician Friedrich Merz has called on the FDP to exclude a traffic light coalition with the SPD and the Greens in the federal government. The liberals should “articulate themselves more clearly” and say that they are not available for a traffic light, he said on Sunday in the ARD. Merz is part of the eight-person so-called “future team” of Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, with whom he recently started the hot phase of the election campaign.
FDP leader Christian Lindner avoided stipulating in the ARD whether a traffic light coalition would come into question. He is promoting a strong FDP with an independent role. “Our offer is a policy of the center – in view of the flirtations of red-green with the left and also in view of the current weakness of the Union.” But it is also important that the Union is closer to the FDP in the matter than the SPD or the Greens. These stand for openness to expropriation, bureaucracy and redistribution, subsidization and higher taxes. “Now this is not a program that has an intrinsic relationship to our program.”
On an earlier occasion, Lindner had already thought about the allocation of responsibilities in a so-called Jamaica coalition with the Union and the Greens and complained to the Ministry of Finance for the FDP. The FDP boss emphasized in the ARD that this question is not about the “career of individual liberals, but about political content”. (06.09.2021)
Merz should list the future team and refuses
Big names from the front row of the Union are not exactly numerous in Armin Laschet’s “future team”. Many of the members of the eight-person group with which the CDU candidate for chancellor wants to go into the decisive phase of the election campaign are likely to be unknown to most citizens. Friedrich Merz is certainly the best-known face, some people may have heard of Dorothee Bär, the Minister of State for Digital Affairs, terrorism expert Peter Neumann and the Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Education Karin Prien. But after that it gets pretty thin.
This is probably what the editorial team thought too of the ARD program “Report from Berlin”. In any case, moderator Matthias Deiß listed the four more well-known members on Sunday and provocatively asked Merz, whether he had “the other four names ready”. One can assume that Deiß prepared himself and could have named all eight team members, even if he revealed certain pronunciation problems with Karin Prien.
Whether Merz is also saddle-proof with all the names remains to be seen. He immediately claimed: “Yes, of course, I have the whole team ready.” When asked whether he could also list them, the economic politician replied in the affirmative, but then he was a bit annoyed and not very motivated to show his knowledge: “We’re not doing school here, are we ?!” Whether children and young people in school should list a CDU future team is another question. In the ARD broadcast, moderator Deiß replied that you could try it. But Merz obviously didn’t feel like doing that, stubbornly refused and ended the topic with a smile and the words: “I know who is on the team, and you know it too, so everything is fine.”
Towards the end of the question and answer session, Deiß tried one more time and asked for the remaining names: “Can I still get them from you or not?” But there was no list of names to be drawn up with Merz: “Neither of us are going to be silly here.” (06.09.2021)