Friedrich Merz hasn’t said a word yet, the message of this Saturday is already set. It comes from the loudspeakers in the exhibition hall, the song is called: “Good Feeling”. The bass booms as Merz marches into the hall, with Markus Söder next to him, and the delegates clap to the rhythm. So a good feeling between the CDU and CSU, total harmony in the Union, the party leaders Merz and Söder want to convey this image to the Republic. Two mighty egos, one voice, really?
“We hadn’t thought of it at all, but we work together brilliantly,” says Söder when he welcomes Merz on the stage of the CSU party conference. That’s right, you wouldn’t have thought it, in January 2022, when Merz rose to become the CDU party leader. For Söder, Merz was a man of the nineties, and one who helped slow him down as the Union’s candidate for chancellor. The question was: How on earth does Söder want to get along with Merz? Today you have to say: It’s going better than expected, much better. And yet, it’s worth not just looking at the similarities that both emphasize. There are still a few differences that reveal something about the relationship status of these two men, their parties, and a rivalry that may just be dormant.
In the fall of 2023, Söder will have to defend his position
If you want to understand that, you should put the speeches that Söder and Merz gave at the CSU party conference next to each other. Söder is first on Friday afternoon. He is heating up the federal government, one of “the weakest governments that we have ever had in the Federal Republic of Germany”. He has recently railed against Berlin very often, at every opportunity. To distract that his party in Bavaria has little to offer? In Augsburg, CSU boss Söder is doing a lot to dispel this suspicion. He doesn’t want to “just criticize”, but rather present “own concepts”, ideas for Bavaria instead of just hitting Berlin. In Augsburg he talks about regional electrolysis power plants and more teaching positions. And less about arms deliveries or migration.
self dwarfing? Not long ago, Söder saw his place in the Chancellery and on the stage of international politics. Yes, self-dwarfing, but for reasons. Söder has realized that in the midst of a world-shattering war he is being heard less and less outside of Bavaria. And, logically, even more importantly: there are state elections in autumn 2023, Söder has to prove to the people in Bavaria that he has more to offer than just pointing his finger to Berlin. “Constant nagging and nagging” is “not interesting,” says Söder in Augsburg. You can take that as an insight. Last year, in the chancellor candidate battle with Armin Laschet (CDU), Söder helped the verb “taunt” to become popular – and did a lot of damage to his own popularity.
Merz alludes to this again in his speech on Saturday. “Annus Horribilis,” says the CDU leader when he talks about the year 2021, in which the candidate duel and its consequences may have cost the Union the chancellorship. “Fighting parties are not elected,” says Merz. Söder knows this too, and would be ill-advised to make an enemy in his own camp in the state election campaign. In Augsburg, he prefers to tease former CDU leaders without naming names: “It’s so nice when CDU members think the same way as CSU members at heart. We didn’t always have that at the party conference.”
While Söder speaks like the prime minister he is and uses his speech to attack the opposition in Bavaria (“God keep us from possible green prime ministers in the future!”), Merz talks about Ukraine, China, Italy. Chancellor topics. And he attacks Olaf Scholz (SPD) more frontally than Söder does. “We have never had a chancellor in Germany who was so disrespectful” with his coalition partners and with other countries. At the CSU party conference, Merz made it clear: I’m the one who competes with the chancellor, not Söder, who directs his attention to Bavaria. Must judge, if only because of the state election.
The role of leader of the opposition in Berlin belongs to Merz, which even Söder has repeatedly emphasized recently. He submits there voluntarily, just no trouble, now in the state election campaign. And anyway, what would that look like: two men who gossip about the Zoff in the traffic light bicker? It’s better to work together on the counter-model. “You’re doing an excellent job in Berlin,” says Söder to Merz, who plays back the flattery. He praises Söder’s energy policy, as well as “the really good cooperation” in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group.
“A country of unregulated immigration, with significant problems” – says Merz
And Merz addresses a topic that Söder tends to avoid: that more people are fleeing again worldwide, including to Germany. A topic that a few years ago “contributed to a certain tension between the CDU and CSU,” says Merz, which is a gross understatement. CSU leader Horst Seehofer almost blew up the Union with open criticism of what he saw as the too friendly migration policy of former Chancellor and CDU leader Angela Merkel. During the 2018 state election campaign, Söder spoke of “asylum tourism”, for which he was sharply criticized – and which he now describes as a mistake. Now, in autumn 2022, the much sharper tones will come from the CDU, from party leader Merz.
It was he who recently used a term (and, after criticism, collected it again) that sounded very much like the old Söder and the old CSU: “social tourism”. In Augsburg, Merz calls on the federal government to prepare again for a large number of refugees. He calls the Federal Republic “a country of unregulated immigration, with considerable problems”. And he gets big applause for it. In general, at the end of the Merz speech, the CSU delegates applauded more enthusiastically than the day before, after Söder’s performance, which had been applauded in a very friendly manner. There are quite a few members in the CSU who want more toughness in migration policy, also from their party leader. But Söder is holding back, also for reasons. With its hard line, the CSU frightened many voters in the 2018 Bavarian election, it fell. Söder has not forgotten that.
When the applause for Merz subsides after almost two minutes, Söder holds a scarf in his hands. One of those friendship scarves that fans of different football clubs usually wear to show each other their affection. On the scarf, which Söder is about to present to Merz as a farewell gift, it says CDU on the left, CSU on the right, with two hands shaking in between. So there is Söder and with him there is the question of how long the peace with Merz will last. Only until the state election, or longer? And should Söder triumph in the Bavarian election, will he claim the chancellor candidacy again in three years, out of new strength?
“You are also a football fan,” says Söder to Merz, “from Dortmund”. In the end, however, only one German champion can become “that’s FC Bayern,” predicts the CSU boss. And hands Merz the scarf.