The CDU leader rules out collaboration with the party.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz wants to seek an offensive confrontation with the AfD in the important election year 2024. “We will go into these elections with a very clear and very tough fight, especially against the AfD,” he said on Saturday at the end of a closed meeting of the CDU executive board in Heidelberg.
This is not a specifically East German issue, but rather a German-wide issue, Merz emphasized, in view of the European elections on June 9 and the state elections in Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony in the autumn. All parties in the political center have the task of dealing with the AfD.
He also expects the same from the SPD, the FDP and the Greens. The CDU president explained that his party would focus intensely on the AfD's European policy, its stance on Russia and economic policy. There is sympathy for the AfD among medium-sized companies and other businesspeople. They will be told: “Please look carefully at who you can vote for. This is not a party that will move this country forward economically.”
“Disgusting political topics”
Regarding the well-known meeting of right-wing activists and extremists in Potsdam, Merz said that he would not tolerate CDU members joining forces with these people in any way and “discussing such disgusting political topics”.
It “completely rules out that we are working with the AfD in any way.” If the conservative group Union of Values does not form itself as a party, it will present a resolution at the party conference that membership in the CDU would be incompatible with this.