CDU celebration convention: Söder congratulates Merz on his re-election | EUROtoday

The finest involves the tip on the CDU celebration convention: Markus Söder strikes in, music sounds and the greater than a thousand delegates clap rhythmically. The CSU chairman got here with peaceable intentions. He brings greetings from the “little, humble sister” and congratulates Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was confirmed as celebration chief the day earlier than with 91 %: “Congratulations on your result, I would have liked that too, but oh well.” Söder was confirmed as CSU chairman on the finish of final 12 months with 83.6 %. A self-deprecating smiler.

The Bavarian Prime Minister thanks Merz “for the close and excellent cooperation” and guarantees the Chancellor that he can depend on the CSU. “We will support you as Chancellor, even longer if you want.” For Merz, the celebration convention ends as positively on Saturday afternoon because it started on Friday.

It is the primary celebration convention at which Merz seems as chancellor, and he has two duties: Despite poor ballot numbers for the CDU, Merz desires to have the broad help of his celebration pals. This succeeds. But by way of content material, it is usually vital to make clear the steadiness of energy throughout the CDU. If one had been to take the election marketing campaign slogans of the chairman and his basic secretary Carsten Linnemann at face worth, Merz and his management group within the celebration and parliamentary group would have needed to give precedence to “pure CDU” at the very least on the delegate assembly, the place they’re amongst themselves.

But after the Chancellor left little doubt in his utility speech on Friday that the soundness of the coalition with the SPD was extra vital to him than the CDU’s fundamental program, the management nearly utterly marched by means of on Saturday, when the Christian Democrats mentioned controversial substantive proposals. In the previous, the CDU was half-mockingly, half-appreciatively known as the Chancellor’s Electoral Association. In Stuttgart she exhibits that the time period nonetheless has its justification.

The first take a look at of energy comes shortly. It’s concerning the social coverage proposal of the Junge Union (JU). Its chairman Johannes Winkel takes to the microphone within the morning and defends the younger individuals’s calls for for pension coverage. Winkel, along with the chairman of the younger group within the Union faction, Pascal Reddig, was the chief of the rebellion in opposition to the pension coverage line of Merz and the faction on the finish of final 12 months. Now he desires at the very least his celebration to undertake the boys’ well-known calls for if the federal government would not.

He talks concerning the sustainability issue. This regulates compensation within the occasion that the ratio of contributors and pensioners shifts. Winkel says that this compensation needs to be reintroduced and distributed throughout three shoulders: each the younger era and taxpayers ought to have to supply extra advantages, however pensions ought to rise much less in return. Winkel additionally criticizes the flat-rate entitlement to the mom’s pension. The “watering can principle” in social coverage should be ended. In addition, tax-financed and contribution-financed companies needs to be extra clearly separated once more, calls for the JU boss. These are just some factors within the lengthy utility.

The applause is loud. For a second it gives the look that the boys may have a majority within the room. The state of affairs is troublesome for Merz. Approval of the proposal would assist his fame as a reformer. Not his on a regular basis authorities life with the Social Democrats. But then North Rhine-Westphalia’s Labor Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Workers’ Association (CDA), Dennis Radtke (not precisely a Merz fan), step as much as the microphone. They are calling for the proposal to be mentioned completely within the Bundestag group and to not be selected in Stuttgart right away. The majority of delegates agree with this want. There is just a little comfort for the JU. The celebration convention decides that parental allowance needs to be elevated, because the boys have demanded.

Other subjects on which contentious discussions would have been potential are handled quietly within the plenary session after intensive prior coordination. Excitements resembling the applying for “lifestyle part-time” had already been defused within the utility committee earlier than the celebration convention. You may say: gutted. The announcement from the celebration management was clear: simply no extra pleasure and surprises, which is what the election campaigners from Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate had additionally needed. The solely factor that did not go utterly easily was the social media ban.

The celebration really noticed itself as being on an excellent path. At the tip of final 12 months, Education Minister Karin Prien arrange a fee on the subject, because the coalition had arrange commissions for therefore many issues. But then there was not solely an utility from her house state affiliation in Schleswig-Holstein on the subject, however the SPD threatened to take over the subject with a requirement paper shortly earlier than the celebration convention. Merz then appeared open to a ban, after which all the things occurred in a short time. Too quick for some within the celebration.

When the celebration’s govt committee met in Stuttgart on Thursday, there was an ideal want for dialogue on the subject, in line with FAZ info. Not solely as a result of there have been nonetheless reservations among the many election campaigners, but additionally as a result of it was mentioned whether or not a ban needs to be imposed till the age of 14 or 16. The Prien Commission didn’t need to be utterly predetermined.

The foundation for the ban needs to be “the recommendations of the Federal Government Commission on the Protection of Children and Young People in the Digital World,” the applying now states. Negotiations continued till Friday to formulate this. It will probably be accepted with out debate on Saturday. And Söder, who just lately described social media bans as “total nonsense”, is doing the CDU a favor right here too – and remained silent about it in his speech shortly after the vote.

The CDU movement adopted states that the federal authorities is named on to “introduce a legal age limit of 14 years for the use of social networks and to define the special need for protection up to the age of 16 in the digital space”. Children and younger persons are in a section of explicit want for cover. “Where economic business models are specifically aimed at attracting attention, activating emotions and controlling behavior, the state cannot remain neutral.” Platform operators needs to be obliged to “introduce an effective and technically reliable age verification system”, and there needs to be sanctions for violations. In addition, “binding legal regulations” are required “that make algorithmic decisions understandable”.

In one other discipline of seduction, younger individuals would not have to worry that the CDU desires to ban them from doing one thing. Most delegates on the CDU celebration convention do not need to hear a couple of sugar tax. A corresponding proposal submitted by Schleswig-Holstein is being intensively mentioned. The state affiliation desires a nationwide sugar tax on drinks with a excessive sugar content material, particularly smooth and vitality drinks. In the tip he’s rejected. That’s what the celebration management needed.

One of the massive points on which the CDU apparently prefers to maintain the ball low on the celebration convention is the compatibility of local weather safety and the financial system. Specifically, it’s a couple of proposal submitted by the SME and Economic Union (MIT) and the Christian Democratic Workers’ Union (CDA) on local weather coverage.

In the unique model, the celebration associations known as for “a strict harmonization of the goals of the national climate protection law with the European Climate Protection Act” and an finish to “national over-achievement”. This signifies that Germany ought to abandon its aim of turning into local weather impartial by 2045, as it’s shifting forward of the European aim of not attaining local weather neutrality till 2050. In addition, the European local weather goal needs to be redefined and the intention needs to be to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions by 90 % (in comparison with 1990) by 2050.

In the controversy on the celebration convention, a delegate stated it was placing that there have been two variations of the movement. “We want to become climate neutral, but we also want to remain an industrial country,” he says. In reality, the above-mentioned necessities can now not be discovered within the model amended by the Applications Commission. The utterly reformulated textual content, which is thus accepted and submitted to the Federal Executive Board, establishes a dedication to duty for creation. The CDU doesn’t see the financial system, local weather safety and social steadiness as opposites, it says. On the idea of the Paris Climate Agreement and with elevated worldwide cooperation, everybody should make their respective contribution.

For the celebration management, the deputy chairmen Karl-Josef Laumann and Andreas Jung negotiated the compromise textual content with the candidates earlier than the celebration convention. It can also be Jung who efficiently promotes this in Stuttgart. He reminds us that the essential program states that the CDU is the celebration that brings each issues collectively: local weather and financial system.

Jung publicizes a broad course of to search out a solution. CDA boss Radtke instructed the FAZ: “It has been agreed with the party leadership that we will hold a workshop discussion with representatives from industry, unions and works councils before the summer to discuss ways in which we can take ambitious climate protection without continuing to lose jobs in industry unchecked.”

But as soon as on Saturday the delegates grew to become rebellious. Right originally. It’s about donations from new members. When they be part of the celebration, they should declare how a lot they’ll donate to their new district affiliation on the event of their acceptance into the celebration. The celebration management needed new members to have the ability to select for themselves whether or not they would switch this donation to the district affiliation or one other degree within the celebration construction: i.e. the regional or district affiliation, the state affiliation or the federal affiliation. This is what it says in utility B20.

The base would not need to go together with that. “This motion sends the wrong signal,” says a delegate who’s treasurer of a district affiliation. The district associations want the donations for “adequate financing in order to organize sustainable party work locally,” he says. “My request: vote against this motion.” That’s the way it occurs.

That would not dampen the temper. Söder additionally praises her. When the Bavarian Prime Minister completed his speech, Merz got here to him. The delegates applaud. The microphone continues to be on and you’ll hear Merz saying to Söder: very good, good ambiance, fantastic conclusion. At the tip, the CDU provides the Star Trek fan a present – a jacket from the “European Space Agency”. Söder thanks Merz with the phrases: “May the force be with you.”