So far, the Union of Values is just an association. Your boss – former head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Maaßen – is a thorn in the side of the CDU. Today it will be decided whether the Union of Values will become a party.
The Values Union is only a small club, but a troublemaker for the CDU. It was founded by conservatives in the Union who did not agree with Angela Merkel’s immigration policy. Most of the approximately 4,000 members are also in the CDU or CSU, like their boss Hans-Georg Maaßen.
The CDU leadership accuses him of right-wing positions and sharing conspiracy stories. That’s why party expulsion proceedings are currently underway against him. This is tedious and the outcome is open. But if the Union of Values becomes a party, then the matter is clear, says CDU leader Friedrich Merz: “The moment someone is a member of a competing party – and that is every other party – this is the same as membership in the CDU incompatible.”
Party somewhere between the Union and the AfD
By founding your own party, the Maaßen case would take care of itself. Many in the CDU are therefore likely to think like board members Joe Chialo and Daniel Caspary: “As a member of the Union, I would be relieved because then we would have one less problem,” admits Chialo. “It’s downright grotesque that you want to be a member of the CDU like Mr. Maaßen and on the other hand you’re already announcing that you’re going to start your own party,” says Caspary. “He should please take the consequences and finally leave.”
The test for the CDU, however, will be how many party members choose Maaßen instead of Merz and go with him. In any case, the direction is clear: to the right. The Union of Values would be somewhere between the Union and the AfD in the party spectrum – according to the assessment of political scientist Julia Reuschenbach. So exactly where the CDU has built its firewall.
Reuschenbach suspects: “If you measure it based on the positions it has represented so far, then parts of the Union of Values would probably be on the brink of fire. With individual people and especially the best-known one – Hans-Georg Maaßen – possibly already behind it. “
Party without much chance?
This means that new debates about the CDU’s demarcation to the right can be expected. But will the Union of Values also become competition that could cost the Union votes? The parliamentary managing director of the Union faction in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, is calm: “I don’t think that Mr. Maaßen will be successful in founding a party, neither in the short nor in the long term. Because I believe that it is for what he has in his political offer , there will be no market.”
Political scientist Reuschenbach also does not expect that a Union of Values party will play a role in the state elections in East Germany in the fall – even if her boss Maaßen is aiming for that.
Values Union members should get out of the Union
For a long time, the CDU hesitated to distance itself further from the Union of Values. Now – after the Potsdam secret meeting between club members and right-wing extremists became known – CDU leader Merz is ready to do so. At the board meeting a week ago, he declared: “If a party is not founded, I will present to the next federal party conference an incompatibility resolution for simultaneous membership in the Union of Values and the CDU.”
That’s why the days of the Union of Values supporters in the CDU are numbered – whether as a party or an association.
Eva Ellermann, ARD Berlin, tagesschau, January 20, 2024 9:19 a.m