The CDU gets a women’s quota. The 1001 delegates at the party congress in Hanover voted for the introduction of a fixed proportion of women. 559 delegates voted in favor, 409 against. With this, the CDU wants to make itself more attractive to women almost a year after its disaster in the federal elections. Since the 1990s, the proportion of women in the Union has remained unchanged at around a quarter, and this is also reflected in the mandates and management positions.
Gradually, more women are to join the board: from 2023, all CDU board positions from the district level are to be filled with 30 percent women. On January 1, 2024, the quota is to increase to 40 percent and from July 1, 2025 to 50 percent. However: The regulation should initially only apply for a limited period of time, and there should also be an evaluation.
Party leader Friedrich Merz had proposed the time limit until the end of 2029 in order to accommodate opponents of the quota. The business wing and the youngsters of the Junge Union (JU) reject a quota. If Merz had not prevailed with his compromise proposal, he would have suffered the first major defeat in his term of office, which has lasted since the end of January.
The quota is just one measure to open up and expand the party among others, CDU General Secretary Mario Czaja said before the party conference. Merz supports the corresponding proposal of the structure and statute commission of the CDU, which arose from the base and from the heart of the party. All national associations took part in the discussion of the Commission’s proposal. Given the ongoing skepticism in parts of the party, Czaja had previously expected a narrow result in the vote on the introduction of a women’s quota. “We are fighting to ensure that there is a majority for this motion,” he said. In the CDU leadership, there were previously concerns that the discussion and vote on the women’s quota could overshadow the substantive debate on the issues that concern people in view of energy prices.