Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus will not run again for the parliamentary group chairmanship in favor of the future CDU chairman Friedrich Merz. Brinkhaus announced this in a letter to the members of the Bundestag from the CDU and CSU, which was available to the German Press Agency in Berlin. Brinkhaus proposes to elect the new parliamentary group leader on February 15th.
Merz informed him that he definitely wanted to run for the presidency of the Union faction, the letter said. “It’s no secret that Friedrich Merz and I have different views on the chairmanship of the parliamentary group,” admitted Brinkhaus. However, this should not become a dissent that would harm the Union in view of the upcoming state elections.
In the past few months, there have been discussions in the CDU as to whether the parliamentary group and party chair must be in the same hand in order to strengthen the role of the opposition leader.
Merkel once supplanted Merz
Merz experienced this debate first-hand 20 years ago: Back then, in 2002, he was the leader of the Union faction and the then party leader, Angela Merkel, urged him to resign. Now the case is apparently similar, only this time Merz is the beneficiary. The 66-year-old is the new strong man of the CDU: Last weekend he was elected party chairman with almost 95 percent of the votes. The election still has to be confirmed by a subsequent postal vote. The result will be announced this Monday.
Brinkhaus, who was elected until the end of April and wanted to continue as parliamentary group leader, writes that he will “of course” remain in the parliamentary group as a member of parliament “and, as before, will contribute with great commitment and joy to the success of our joint Christian Democratic and Christian Social project”.