Norbert Röttgen is obviously in a hurry. He’s nine minutes early for his own performance. For someone who – once again – wants to become chairman of the CDU, nine minutes is an almost wasted amount of time. What do you do when you have to wait nine minutes on the podium at the federal press conference until the reporters finally arrive and the TV stations start broadcasting? Great, then you at least have enough time for photos, says Röttgen.
With him on the podium, Franziska Hoppermann is also waiting for her big appearance, a woman who has so far been well known in political Berlin. Since she is here, of course, everyone suspects that Röttgen is about to present her as his candidate for general secretary. The opportunity to take a group photo is therefore widely used. When the flashlight thunderstorm is over, there are still five minutes to wait until the start of the event.
Time for a little time warp. When the foreign politician Norbert Röttgen, 56, already sat here to announce a candidacy for the party chairmanship, he was not only in the role of the outsider, but also that of the spoilsport. By rushing ahead back then, in February 2020, he finally ruined all efforts to find an amicable backroom solution between Armin Laschet and Friedrich Merz. It is therefore not a bad idea that Röttgen starts with the difference between his then and his current application when the show can finally start. He says that in 2020 he wasn’t even expecting to win. You can’t do what he’s planning in one go anyway. “But you have to start running to get there,” he says. There is no doubt that when he talks about renewing the CDU, then it is about something big.
Röttgen announces that he will present six aspects that will shape his time as party leader, whereby he gets a little confused after the fourth point (Christian image of man) and suddenly starts counting again from point three (foreign policy competence). So he manages to secretly accommodate eight demands in six points. He’s a professional after all.
Röttgen clearly sets itself apart from Merz
His first point is the CDU as a people’s party in the center. “Our location has to be in the middle of society,” says Röttgen. But what is decisive is his next sentence, namely that this location must be expressed in the figure of the chairman. This clearly sets him apart from his alleged competitor Friedrich Merz, who, as is well known, can also gain something from the location factors of conservative climes.
But Röttgen argues: “We lost the votes and the elections in the middle and we will get these votes back in the middle.” So only with someone like him at the helm. This leads him to his second central argument on his own behalf: “The CDU and its chairman in person must embody credibility in climate policy,” otherwise the younger generation would no longer listen. The chairman candidate in person who speaks here was at least one time Federal Environment Minister.
And Friedrich Merz? Röttgen does not want to distance himself too much from him, after all, in the member survey, he also needs votes from the classic Merz camp if he wants to become party leader. Röttgen says that the conservative will of course always remain “part of the identity” of the CDU.
But now there is still a third man involved, Helge Braun. The executive minister of the Chancellery now also wants to become head of the CDU. Unlike Röttgen, he is not looking for the public stage this Friday, but first introduces himself to the party.
Braun still lacks the woman on his political side
There are many in the CDU who are not really convinced by Merz or Röttgen. And Braun is convinced that this is his chance. But of course he also knows that the members are not necessarily longing for a man from above at the moment. So Braun points out that he has been district chairman for 18 years – and thus something like the base himself. And he promises to be a chairman, next to whom many could distinguish themselves. As the head of the Chancellery you are already a kind of walking mediation committee. In a party whose grandees have not attracted attention in recent years for their exemplary manners, Braun would like to bring the camps together again. But he has not yet presented a team or a woman on his political side.
In the federal press conference, it took almost 25 minutes before Norbert Röttgen’s new teammate had a say for the first time. Franziska Hoppermann says: “Allow me to introduce myself first: I am 39 years old, married, have a 15-year-old son and come from Hamburg.” She also points to her experience in local politics and as a full-time mother. She has also been a member of the Bundestag for a few weeks, which Röttgen attached particular importance to when electing his General Secretary.
In the coming opposition years there will not be many stages for CDU politicians on which they will still be noticed. The Bundestag will be an important one. That is one of the reasons why Röttgen is not part of the team this time with the Rhineland-Palatinate member of the state parliament, Ellen Demuth.
Hoppermann says the general secretary’s job is something that inspires her respect, but she dares to do it. Röttgen apparently does not dare to take the chairmanship of the Union parliamentary group immediately. He says: “I will work closely and trustingly with Ralph Brinkhaus.” That sounds almost like a team invitation to someone who was also recently said to have ambitions to become party chairman.