Officially, the Union of Values has nothing to do with the CDU, but it also includes CDU members. According to party leader Merz, this will no longer be possible in the future – regardless of whether the Union of Values becomes a party or remains an association.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz wants to burn all bridges with the right-wing conservative association Values Union. If the Union of Values under its chairman Hans-Georg Maaßen actually becomes its own party, simultaneous membership in the CDU would no longer be possible under the current rules, said Merz at the end of a closed meeting of the CDU federal executive board.
If the party is not founded, he will apply for a resolution of incompatibility with the union of values at a federal party conference. “There is no longer any reason to get involved with the CDU anywhere outside of the regular structures of our party,” said Merz. “Parallel structures” outside the party are unnecessary. “Anyone who thinks otherwise should leave.”
The controversial former President of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution Maaßen announced last week that he wanted to expand the Union of Values into a party. The Union of Values, founded in 2017, currently operates as a registered association and is not one of the Union’s official party divisions. According to its own information, it currently has 4,000 members, many of whom belong to the CDU or CSU.
Maaßen doesn’t want “a firewall” for the AfD
Maaßen wants to set the course for the founding of the party at a general meeting of the Union of Values on January 20th in Erfurt. He justified this with the CDU’s current course. Since Angela Merkel, the Union parties no longer represent the CDU’s “brand core: freedom instead of socialism,” said Maaßen. Merz is also “not ready for a change in policy.”
In interviews, Maaßen also made it clear that – unlike Merz – he did not rule out collaboration with the AfD, which is partly right-wing extremist. For him, there is “no firewall here,” said Maaßen.
Party exclusion process running
The Union of Values recently hit the headlines in connection with the Potsdam secret meeting. According to research by the Correctiv network, AfD politicians and members of the Values Union were also present at the meeting with right-wing extremists.
Maaßen is currently still a CDU member, but a party expulsion process is underway against him. The CDU federal executive board decided this unanimously last February. The reason given was that Maaßen continually violated the party’s principles and order and repeatedly used “language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologists, including ethnic expressions.”