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One only has to go through the four terms that Friedrich Merz put into the center of his application on Wednesday afternoon: migration, globalization, climate change and digitization. These are the biggest challenges facing his party and the country, he said.

An absolutely correct analysis of the man who wants to inherit Angela Merkel at the head of the CDU.

Merz, 62, is a smart man who may have learned more about how crucial these questions are in the course of his extensive economic mandates and responsibilities over the past few years than many senior leaders - and how closely they are related.

As smart as Merz is, he knows one thing above all else: The time of simple answers is finally over.

The reason that many Africans want to come to Europe, and especially to Germany, is that climate change is taking them more and more away from the already modest opportunities in their home countries, while the exploitation of their mineral resources and labor by globally operating corporations is advancing technical progress works more and more precisely.

This is just an example to show the connections.

And now this Friedrich Merz is to set up his party again by the CDU politician carries on where he left in 2002 as a Union faction leader? So with clear enemy images (Two years ago, he said about the political left: "I always said, the spin." And: "I still believe today."), A return to old CDU values ​​and unambiguous messages.

In the video: The appearance of Merz

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DPA

At least that's what his fans in the party want. And so it hopes those who sit on the other side of the spectrum after old camp logic: "Dream boy of the left" headlines on Thursday the "taz". The commentary says: "Take Friedrich Merz". Because according to this logic, "the social conflicts would be sharply focused" and the left parties would profit.

But the train is long gone. "The times of the reflexive left-right scheme are over anyway", writes competitor Jens Spahn on Thursday in the FAZ - and he is right with it. Old Germany is not coming back.

The CDU stands for reconciliation of interests

Back to the four challenges: AfD and Left Party meet sometimes on the issue of migration, it is similar in globalization, where the FDP, however, can not go fast enough, climate change want to hold the Greens particularly vehemently, in terms of digitization, they are because of privacy rather defensive. Union and SPD? They are not at the top of a single topic. Because: That's how it is, as long as you have the claim of a People's Party. It's all about balance of interests - and more so the more complicated things are.

Back to Merz: What he probably still had worn in 2002 as an honorary title, namely the concept of neo-liberal, he vehemently rejected on Wednesday. The neo-liberalism (in Germany also driven by the red-green federal government until 2005) has namely fallen brutally on the nose in the meantime. As a staunch transatlanticist and advocate of the "democracies of the west" model, he still sees himself - but how exactly does this lead to a clear stance, while the elected US President Donald Trump tramples on these values ​​every day in the motherland of Western democracy ?

Voice # 72 - Merkel's retreat plan and who can torpedo him

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And who of Merz fans in the Union believes that in the rescue of the Eurozone would face - as expected by a true CDU economist - against the ideas of French President Emmanuel Macron: error. Ten days ago, Merz had signed a call to support, for example, Macon's idea of ​​a European unemployment insurance scheme. On his appearance on Wednesday, he warned that the French president had earned more substantial replies from Germany. In order to keep Europe together, the call, "we must be ready for genuine compromises, also for German financial contributions".

This is the core of rational, modern politics. Compromises that sometimes hurt.

For this you need people's parties, but you need at the top people who promote compromise and explain complicated backgrounds. Whether the Friedrich Merz of 2018 has changed so much, he will have to show in the remaining weeks until the party conference in early December.

The fact that he could remain quite the old man and lead his party into a future of yesterday is just a dream of right and left.

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