The CDU is making a new attempt for a renovated policy programme. After this did not succeed under party leader Kramp-Karrenbauer, Chairman Merz wants to do it. The results of the work of several commissions should be available in 2024. The goal remains to be a center party.
On the way to a new basic program, the CDU presented the draft of an overarching "Charter of Fundamental Values". It should now go into discussion with the members and be "a trend-setting step" for the work of several specialist commissions, as party leader Friedrich Merz said in Berlin. The board of directors is to deal with the charter on June 15, and then decide on it at the federal party conference in September in Hanover. The new basic program is to be developed by 2024. The current program is from 2007 - even before the first iPhone came onto the market.
The process was restarted after the Union's defeat in the general election. Actually, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had already wanted to start work on a new basic program after her election in 2018 as party leader. However, she gave up the post about two years later. Under her successor Armin Laschet, the process was partially suspended because it was concentrating on the federal election campaign. After the defeat, Merz took over the post after losing to Kramp-Karrenbauer and then Laschet.
Merz said that the CDU is the only political force that does not see stability and change as irreconcilable opposites, but as two sides of the same coin. She does not see what has been achieved as ballast from the past. At the same time: "When the world is changing, the CDU must not stand still." In the current crisis after Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine, it is becoming clear that freedom and security are interdependent.
With a view to economic and social policy, the CDU leader said: "Basically, debt is nothing more than a refusal to seriously deal with the future." He also criticized: "This country has missed 30 years to give an appropriate response to demographic change, which is particularly appropriate for the younger generation." In more than half of the time, however, the CDU led the government.
Merz emphasized the CDU's Christian image of man, which puts people at the center of politics. That's not prose. Just as climate change is man-made, the fight against it must also be man-made.
In the draft of the Charter of Fundamental Values, the CDU emphasizes its self-image as a "centre people's party" and its Christian-social, liberal and conservative roots. One of the specific, important goals listed is a Germany in Europe "that accelerates the path to climate neutrality with consistent climate protection". Mentioned is the concept of a "social and ecological market economy" and the goal that "equality between the sexes and actual equality between men and women have been realised".
The chairman of the basic program commission, party vice Carsten Linnemann, said it was about a compelling and encouraging new narrative for the CDU. In the next few years, the matter should be discussed as to what will do the party good. In concrete terms, specialist commissions are to develop positions on several topics. The current basic program of the CDU dates from 2007.
