CDU leader Friedrich Merz replaces General Secretary Mario Czaja. The party announced on Tuesday. Carsten Linnemann is to be his successor. He is currently deputy leader of the CDU and chairman of the basic program committee. According to the party’s statement, Merz and Czaja “mutually agreed” to end their cooperation at the top of the party. “I didn’t take the decision lightly to propose a change in the position of Secretary General of the CDU,” Merz tweeted.
Czaja was elected Secretary General in January 2022 with a good 94 percent of the vote. There has been dissatisfaction with Czaja in the party for some time. Among other things, he was accused of organizational weaknesses. In addition, there were complaints that he was not sufficiently present in public for a general secretary.
The designated successor Linnemann has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009 and represents the North Rhine-Westphalian constituency of Paderborn. He has been deputy federal chairman of the CDU since last year. Linnemann is considered an economic politician who repeatedly urges citizens to take responsibility for themselves and warns that the state is taking on too many tasks. In the Corona crisis, many people got used to the state cushioning all problems, Linnemann believes. Instead, what is urgently needed is a “welfare state brake”. The state must save.
The CDU leadership has recently come under pressure to justify itself because the party cannot benefit from the current problems of the traffic light coalition. The CDU and CSU are together at the top of the polls with almost 30 percent. So far, however, the Union, under the leadership of Merz, has not managed to clearly exceed 30 percent. Instead, the AfD in particular had increased recently.
As a consequence of the success of the AfD, Merz has already announced that it will deal more closely with the Greens than before. In the federal government, they are the “main opponents”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.” We disagree with the Greens in the federal government not only in details, but in principle when it comes to issues of economic policy, energy policy and climate policy,” Merz told the Foreign Press Association in Berlin on Tuesday. “That’s why I said that: We have to deal with the Greens in Germany a little harder and a little clearer. They are the ones who are currently responsible for this core area of federal politics.” Merz’s statement about opposition to the Greens is also controversial in his party. The CDU governs in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein with the Greens as a junior partner, in Baden-Württemberg the Union is the smaller coalition partner in a green-black alliance. In Brandenburg and Saxony, the two parties also rule together – in three-party coalitions with the SPD.
Merz now said: “In some federal states we do indeed govern very well with the Greens, but that is state politics. We are discussing federal politics here, and federal politics is above all economic policy, energy policy, climate policy.” When asked who he wanted to govern with after the next federal election, Merz replied: “I’m not having a coalition discussion at the moment either. We are having factual discussions with the coalition and against the coalition.”