Party congress in Hanover: CDU adopts charter of fundamental values

The charter of basic values ​​adopted by the CDU at its party conference is intended to be a “reflection on basic convictions”. The document contains guidelines for a new party programme, which ten specialist commissions are to develop by 2024.

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.

Party congress votes for introduction of women’s quota

The discussion about the concept of equality apparently still had an impact on the previous day’s controversial debate about the introduction of a women’s quota for board positions. After decades of dispute, the CDU yesterday 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.