Right-wing conservative union of values
Maaßen announces the first steps towards founding a party
Hans-Georg Maaßen is the new chairman of the Union of Values
© Michael Reichel / DPA
Values Union leader Hans-Georg Maaßen is threatened with expulsion from the CDU. Now he is apparently planning to turn his right-wing conservative club into his own party. The first steps should be set at a general meeting.
Union of Values wants to vote on secession from CDU/CSU
The Union of Values, founded in 2017, sees itself as an association of conservative Christian Democrats. She argues that the CDU had moved too far to the left under then-party leader Angela Merkel and needed to represent more conservative positions again. The group operates as a registered association and is not one of the official party branches of the CDU or CSU.
According to Maaßen, a general meeting of the Union of Values is planned for January 20th in Erfurt. A decision should be made there about transferring the naming rights to a newly founded party called ValuesUnion. The previous association WertUnion should therefore become a support association “that pursues the goal of supporting conservative politics in Germany,” as Maaßen wrote.
“If the general meeting agrees to these far-reaching changes, this would be the first step towards a separation of the Values Union from the CDU and CSU,” explained Maaßen. The members of the Union of Values are connected to the CDU and CSU “over memberships that sometimes last decades, but since Angela Merkel, today’s Union parties no longer represent the core brand of the CDU: freedom instead of socialism.”
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Last year it became clear that the CDU federal chairman Friedrich Merz and the federal executive committee of the CDU “are not prepared for a policy change. Rather, the left-wing course of the Merkel CDU should be continued,” wrote Maaßen and complained: “Merkel’s policies have Significant damage has been done to Germany in all political areas.”
The Union of Values is a thorn in the side of the federal CDU because of its criticism of the official party course. A party expulsion process is underway against Maaßen, who is himself a CDU member and has repeatedly caused a stir in recent years with right-wing populist statements.
According to its own information, the Union of Values has around 4,000 members. The past two years have been marked by internal disputes. In 2021, the AfD-affiliated economist Max Otte was surprisingly elected as the successor to the founding chairman Alexander Mitsch. Otte had to give up the chairmanship after running as the AfD candidate for the office of Federal President in 2022.