analysis
Status: 23.07.2021 7:06 p.m.
Expansion of the mother’s pension, child splitting: The CSU is entering the crucial phase of the federal election campaign with numerous election promises of its own. This is also an announcement to Union Chancellor candidate Laschet.
The CSU can’t leave it. Actually, the Christian Socials had announced almost half a year ago that this time they would go into the Bundestag election campaign without their own Bayern plan and be content with the Union’s joint election program. Now CSU boss Markus Söder is presenting his party’s own paper in Gmund am Tegernsee: the 18-page “CSU program” with the additional title “Good for Bavaria. Good for Germany”.
In front of the picturesque backdrop of Tegernsee and the foothills of the Alps, the CSU chairman holds up the new paper for photographers that the party executive has just decided. “Relief for the middle class”, “Right of way for families”, “Protection of our Bavarian agriculture” – according to Söder, these are central contents with which the Christian Socialists especially want to address middle-class voters.
Gone are the days when Söder worked his way off the Greens as the main opponent. “The green soaring has stopped,” he says again today. He is currently more concerned that the bourgeois camp could split up. The CSU particularly fears second votes for the FDP and free voters, which could lead to “random majorities”, as the party leader puts it.
Undecided voters
Söder’s warning on this day is aimed equally at the indecisive bourgeois voters in Bavaria and at the CDU chairman and Union chancellor candidate Armin Laschet: An FDP that is too strong could cost the Union its chancellorship. Of course, the Liberals are a partner with whom it can be governed more easily. “Nevertheless we have to look to bundle all voices with us.” Because if one or two percentage points should go back or forth, a traffic light coalition of the SPD, FDP and the Greens is “more than possible”. That is why the issue of discharge should not be left to the FDP under any circumstances, warns Söder.
And so the CSU emphasized its economic competence when presenting its new program and presented itself as a “party for the middle class”. The paper does not contain a striking and polarizing campaign hit – such as the car toll for foreigners, the care allowance, which is decried as a “stove premium”, or the upper limit for refugees. Instead, the CSU relies on a wealth of individual measures that are intended to relieve the wallet of families, medium-sized companies, craftsmen, restaurateurs and farmers. It’s not about putting everything on one card, says CSU General Secretary Markus Blume. “It is the whole breadth of life that concerns us.”
Extension of the maternal pension
The CSU wants to make the expansion of the maternal pension a condition for a coalition after the federal election. The spouse splitting is to be retained and supplemented by a child splitting. Childcare costs are to be fully deductible, and the relief contribution for single parents is to be increased. The CSU wants to strengthen the craft by increasing the craft bonus, among other things.
For the catering industry, the party is relying on a permanent reduction in VAT. Small farms are to be relieved of bureaucracy, and the CSU wants lower taxes on regional food. And the commuter flat-rate is to be linked to the annual average price for carbon dioxide (CO2): “The guideline should be: ten cents more at the pump will mean one cent more commuter flat-rate in future,” says the CSU program.
“Small things, big impact”
A journalist from Söder wants to know how all this is to be financed. The CSU boss appeased: The “really big chunks” are in the Union election platform, the CSU demands are “small things that have a big impact, however”. After the federal election, priorities would then have to be defined “as far as funding is concerned”. But it is the goal of the CSU to “implement as much of it as possible”.
The CSU grandees do not mention the name of the joint chancellor candidate Laschet, to whom Söder was defeated in the race for the top candidate. This afternoon is about a demonstration of Christian social self-confidence – also towards the sister party.
It is clear to everyone who is meant, as Söder emphasizes: It must be documented that it is not a question of “driving the sleeping car to the Chancellery at slow speed”. There is still “massive room for improvement” for the Union Söder sets the benchmark for the Union at significantly more than 30 percent.
“We still have a lot of work to do”
However, there is also room for improvement for the CSU. in the BR-BavariaTrend in the federal election, the Christian Socialists recently came to 36 percent in the Free State – this is the worst result in decades. Despite all the demonstrative self-confidence, Söder also indirectly admits the fear of going bankrupt. “We still have a lot of work to do,” he says.
It is important to draw “federal political voices” from the high level of approval of the state government’s policy. In the 65 days until the federal election, the CSU therefore apparently wants to bring the old equation “Bavaria = CSU” back to the fore. A message that should also be cemented through the choice of the venue: through beautiful Söder pictures in front of a Bavarian postcard backdrop. Blume even stiffened to the assertion that it was no coincidence “that the sun is shining today” and Bavaria is “in top form”.