Status: 01/29/2023 06:02 a.m
The new chairman of the Value Union, Maassen, is not wanted in the CDU. Party leader Merz justified this in the “Bild am Sonntag” with his language and the ideas that he was expressing.
For the CDU leader Friedrich Merz, “the measure is full”. He no longer sees a place in the CDU for the new chairman of the Values Union, Hans-Georg Maassen. “We have asked Mr. Maaßen to leave the party. It is not easy to be excluded from the party, but we are currently carefully examining what options we have,” Merz told the “Bild am Sonntag”. The decisive factors are the language and the ideas of the former President for the Protection of the Constitution.
Maassen held this office from 2012 to 2018. He had to vacate the post after questioning right-wing extremist riots in Chemnitz.
Maassen harms the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The current President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, accuses his predecessor Maassen of damaging the agency with radical right-wing statements. “Because we are always associated with such things,” said Haldenwang im “Interview of the Week” of Deutschlandfunks.
New boss of the union of values
On Saturday, Maassen was elected chairman of the right-wing conservative union of values. The CDU, which is examining a party exclusion procedure against him, accused Maassen of a “shabby dirt campaign” against him.
The Union of Values, founded in 2017, sees itself as a group of conservative Christian Democrats. In their opinion, the CDU had moved too far to the left under the then party leader Angela Merkel. The association demands that more conservative positions should be represented again.
The federal CDU is a thorn in the side of the union of values because of their criticism of the official party course. The group says it has around 4,000 members.
CDU examines party exclusion
The federal CDU announced on Tuesday that it was examining a party exclusion procedure against Maassen. The 60-year-old had also recently caused a stir with right-wing populist statements. Maassen spoke in an interview with a right-wing populist Internet portal last week. “According to green-red racial theory, whites are an inferior race,” he claimed there, among other things.