Status: 07.10.2021 7:52 a.m.
Numerous CDU politicians are calling for their own party to be reorganized – interior expert Bosbach, for example, is calling for a generation change. Others urge short-term unity, also because for them Jamaica explorations are not off the table.
In the Union, the discussion about the line-up after the historic disaster in the federal election and the consequences for CDU leader Armin Laschet continues to pick up speed. In the afternoon, according to information from the dpa news agency, the Union parliamentary group comes together for a switching conference on the current situation at the invitation of parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus. It is eagerly awaited how the situation for Laschet will develop up to the regular deliberations of the CDU top committees next Monday.
Meanwhile, internal party criticism of him is increasing. The long-time CDU interior expert Wolfgang Bosbach suggested to Laschet to pave the way for a generation change in the CDU. On the television channel “Bild Live” he pointed out that the day before Laschet had proposed the North Rhine-Westphalian Transport Minister Hendrik Wüst as his successor in the office of Prime Minister. “In North Rhine-Westphalia, Armin Laschet and Hendrik Wüst showed how to do it. He’s a young, fresh face. He’s in his mid-forties,” said Bosbach.
It would be a good sign if Laschet would now also moderate the generation change in the CDU. “It’s about dignity and respect for Armin Laschet himself,” emphasized Bosbach. “We don’t want weeks of dismantling. We owe that to Armin Laschet, that we treat him properly.”
Klöckner sees party before “caesura”
The Rhineland-Palatinate CDU chairwoman Julia Klöckner called for a renewal of the party: “After 16 years of governance, we are facing a turning point,” said Klöckner, who is also CDU deputy federal chairman, of the “Rheinische Post”. “As hard as it is, we have to see this situation as an opportunity now.” Klöckner said: “We as a Union have the task of examining ourselves in terms of content and personnel.”
After the decision in favor of traffic light explorations, the deputy CDU chairman Thomas Strobl criticized his own party: “For us it is particularly bitter and hopefully a warning that the developments that have brought us to today’s point are our own fault.” said the Baden-Württemberg interior minister to the newspapers of the Funke media group. Strobl complained about a lack of unity. “To begin with, too many did not pull together too intensively for the CDU and the Union, but tried to gain a personal advantage,” he said. During the preliminary investigations, the strictest secrecy and the highest discipline were not considered enough.
“Image of a demolition force”
In the newspapers of the Funke media group, the deputy head of the CDU workers’ wing CDA, Dennis Radtke, criticized: “Recently, we were more likely to give the public the image of a demolition column than of a party that is interested in shaping the future.” That needs to be changed. “Before we have a personnel debate, we have to clarify what went wrong and how we are going to position ourselves in terms of content,” warned Radtke. “The renewal of the Union must take place in the middle, because we have lost 2.5 million voters to the SPD and the Greens. They did not vote for us because the Union was not right-wing or economically liberal enough – but because they had the impression that we don’t care enough about social issues. ”
Daniel Caspary, chairman of the CDU / CSU group in the European Parliament, warned against hasty steps in relation to the explorations. The traffic light soundings are “by no means a sure-fire success”. As one experienced four years ago, explorations could also fail, said the CDU presidium member of the news agency dpa. “Then we shouldn’t be ready as an unsorted heap, but as an orderly formation.”