Laschet, Merz and Röttgen are closer than ever

reThe color of the floor is light gray, as is the background of the studio. The three gentlemen, who are sitting in front of the gray wall, talking to a young presenter, wear muted-colored suits and moderate-colored ties. In age, they differ by a decade from the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties.

His home is North Rhine-Westphalia, his party political home is the CDU. They have known each other for a long time, they talk to each other, they gladly confirm each other within the hour and a half of discussion that began at 7 pm and they repeat the veracity of what the other said. People laugh, for example when Friedrich Merz, the oldest of the group, proudly refers to the number of his grandchildren and the other two have to admit defeat in this regard.

Applying the word dispute to even a small part of Monday night’s meeting at Konrad-Adenauer-Haus would be a completely past reality. Only one or another difference of opinion appears in the course of the night. So here are the three men running for the party’s highest office in Germany, the chairmanship of the CDU, whose head and a woman have mostly held one of the most powerful political positions in Europe for the past seventy years. : that of Federal Chancellor. So is this the most exciting power struggle Germany has to offer currently?

Candidates fight

This is exactly what Friedrich Merz, Norbert Röttgen and Armin Laschet look like, and the entire CDU leadership seems to want it. It is the first round of talks organized by the party headquarters for the three candidates. In the morning of the day, the board decided that the party congress, which in all probability will elect one of them as the new president and successor to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, should take place on January 15 and 16. The Konrad-Adenauer-Haus organized a second debate in January, shortly before the party congress, and the party members would continue to question each other for an hour. Röttgen experienced that last Friday, the other two are Thursday and Friday of this week. It’s supposed to be the end of the fight.

Of course, different accents can be recognized. Röttgen says from the beginning that the CDU must become more feminine, younger and more digital. So he bravely sets foot on the field that is attributed to the Greens. However, it is not about coalition ideas, but about strengthening “our positions”. Merz takes a step in the other direction. From time to time the “competition in the middle” was lost, and one should return to the political debate there. Certainly, Merz is also lacking a commitment to climate policy. The fact that nothing and no one is “without an alternative” can be understood as a small kick to Angela Merkel, with whom Merz used to maintain an intimate enmity, of which he currently feels nothing. Laschet, the head of government of the most populous country, connects what his two competitors have said: it is about remaining an industrialized country and addressing “green issues.”

The differences become particularly clear when it comes to the issue that viewers raised early on, how the CDU wants more women in its ranks. Laschet demands that the next federal government be made up of equal numbers of men and women, Röttgen is in favor of the quota for women decided by the CDU’s constitution and structure committee, Merz calls quota the “second best solution”. He points out that he entrusted the leadership of his team to a member of the Bundestag nine months ago.

Laschet feels attacked

At any given moment, you have an idea of ​​what would happen if the three of them forgot even a little about the discipline of iron-clad discussion. It’s about how the federal states deal with the billions of the federal government, especially when it comes to digitizing schools. Merz complains about what is not working in the schools of North Rhine-Westphalia, Laschet feels attacked, says that the states are fulfilling their tasks. Röttgen, who, as a member of the Bundestag, has to decide what funds the federal government will make available to states, says with a slightly smug smile that states probably don’t need the federal government’s billions.

But that’s still a skirmish. What prevails tonight is unity. When discussing when the party congress should take place some time ago, Merz lost his temper for a moment and publicly accused the party leadership that they wanted to put him at a disadvantage by postponing the delegates meeting, he received strong criticism. The CDU can watch closely as the dispute brings the parties down. The SPD has shown it for many years, the FDP especially when it ruled, the AfD is only showing it, and the strong decline of the Union, which only turned into its opposite with the pandemic, was based on the dispute over the policy of refugees. The Greens show that unity makes polls go up and up. So the CDU also sticks to the motto: Above all, agreed. Those who forget, activists in the countries will remind them that they will have to fight important battles before the federal elections next year that the controversy in Berlin is always bad for the outcome of the elections.

So Röttgen praised the “competition that runs with respect” at the beginning of the night and repeats it at the end of the event. In any case, the peace lasted well that night.