Status: 09/10/2022 3:59 p.m
At its party conference, the CDU passed a charter of basic values with which the party wants to reflect on its basic convictions. In addition, the delegates decided to demand a mandatory year of society.
At its 35th party conference in Hanover, the CDU adopted a charter of fundamental values. The chairman of the program and policy commission, Carsten Linnemann, emphasized that it should not reinvent the party, but rather reflect on the basic convictions. The paper is intended to provide the guidelines for the basic program that ten specialist commissions are to develop by the beginning of 2024.
After the defeat in the federal elections last year, the party wants to give itself a clearer profile in the future. The last basic program of the CDU dates back to 2007.
According to the chairman of the leading expert commission, the Mainz historian Andreas Rödder, the charter adheres to the triad of “Christian, social and conservative”. Accordingly, it is shaped by the core ideas of Catholic social teaching on personality, subsidiarity and solidarity, as well as by the “anti-ideological statement that politics only gives penultimate answers”. At the same time, the CDU sees itself “obligated to the traditions of the Enlightenment and is open to all people who – regardless of their own religious convictions – share their basic values”.
New addition “bourgeois” and commitment to the “C”
The addition “- and in the best sense of the word bourgeois” has been added. Rödder added that the commission had re-spelled the “C”. In doing so, they discovered “what substance the ‘C’ has and what distinctiveness it has”. Christian democratic politics think in terms of the person and not of group affiliations. That distinguishes the CDU “from an identity politics of the right as well as of left-wing identity politics,” according to the historian.
Rödder also defended the term “bourgeois”. He does not mark a contrast to the “C”, but both complement each other. A motion to replace it with “Christian Democrat” did not find a majority.
Debate on the term “equality”
There were long discussions before the adoption of a passage in which actual equality between men and women is demanded. Several motions suggested replacing the word with “equal rights” or “equal opportunity”. Speakers put the word “equality” in the context of left-wing politics that set standards for social issues and did not correspond to the profile of the CDU.
The party congress finally decided to keep the term by a majority of 434 votes to 356, with 15 abstentions.
“A lot against the background of the Lower Saxony elections”, Kristin Schwietzer, ARD Berlin, currently Hanover, on the CDU federal party conference
tagesschau24 4:00 p.m., 10.9.2022
CDU for mandatory company year
Furthermore, the delegates spoke out in favor of the nationwide introduction of a mandatory company year and rejected a voluntary variant. A society year is understood as a service “that enables all young people to get involved temporarily and concretely for our country and for our society,” according to the application, which was submitted by, among others, the deputy federal chairmen Carsten Linnemann and Silvia Breher as well as Junge- Union boss Tilman Kuban had initiated.
However, this initially left open whether it should be a compulsory or voluntary service. The justification states: “Many people only move in digital and social echo chambers. Such a development is poison for our free-democratic society.” In addition, a year of society promotes personal development and makes the state more resilient.
Wide selection and “attractive service fee”
Where the young people can complete the service should be as flexible as possible, “be it in social institutions, in hospitals, in the Bundeswehr, in civil defense with the THW or the fire brigade, through recognized aid organizations abroad or in sports and culture or with nature and environmental protection associations”.
The service should be remunerated with an “attractive service fee”. The application stipulates that the year of service should be completed “usually immediately after leaving school”, a corresponding legal obligation should come into force upon reaching the age of 18, although it should also be possible to complete it earlier.
Party congress votes for introduction of women’s quota
Yesterday, after decades of dispute, the CDU also decided on a graduated quota for women in the allocation of party offices. The delegates voted 559 votes to 409 in favor of a compromise proposal from the federal executive board.
From 2023 onwards, a third of the posts on board members from the district level must be filled by women, from 2024 it will be 40 percent and from mid-2025 50 percent. The regulation will be limited to 2029.