At the Leipzig party congress in 2003, party chairwoman Angela Merkel prescribed a program for the CDU that was clearly market-based for the Union.

“The alternatives are: keep on doctoring and save yourself over time or dare to break free.

I choose the second way, ”said Merkel.

As Federal Chancellor, Merkel refused the second way.

Merkel pursued an increasingly social democratic economic and social policy, supported by the opinion that the majority of Germans unwilling to reform could not be expected to make noticeable changes.

It earned the Chancellor a high level of sympathy, but the Union only received 32.9 percent in the 2017 federal elections.

Armin Laschet would probably be very happy if the Union came back to 32.9 percent in six weeks.

In current surveys, the Union achieved around 26 percent, and it says a lot about the state of the political parties that Laschet would still have a good chance of winning the Federal Chancellery with a result that would be nothing but a debacle for the Union.

Insufficiently prepared

It would be devastating if Laschet remained vague about such a calculation in this election campaign so as not to alienate anyone among the consumptive crowd of remaining loyalists.

Germany faces enormous economic, financial and socio-political challenges.

Demographics, climate change and the digital revolution will presumably put this country under considerable pressure to adapt for decades to come.

The country is insufficiently prepared for this.

On the assets side, there is an efficient economy despite all the challenges that Germany's European partners still envy.

But the balance sheet also has a liability side, which includes, among other things, an unexpectedly inefficient state and high financial future burdens, for example in social security.

Obviously, all the challenges of the coming decades can only be met with a strong economy that benefits from an efficient bureaucracy and a modern infrastructure. It must also be possible to implement large-scale projects within a period that is not measured after several decades. What speaks against a thinning of government spending in order to develop savings potential? Transfer expenditures as well as subsidies need to be scrutinized.

At the center of climate policy is the price of carbon dioxide, which as an instrument is more powerful than any small-scale regulation and provokes less resistance than moralizing paternalism. The use of the CO2 price allows financial relief, for example by abolishing the EEG surcharge. Anyone who wants to pursue climate policy in an industrialized nation like Germany must use hydrogen without restricting themselves to green hydrogen for ideological reasons.

Seven months after the federal election, presidential elections are taking place in France, the outcome of which for the future of Europe will be no less than the German polls in autumn. In addition, every economic and climate policy must have a global orientation; national efforts are not enough. Here would be an opportunity for the Union: The Greens have a global issue with the climate, but no other party is more provincial.

The “government of the middle”, of which FDP leader Christian Lindner speaks, requires a union that finally sets the tone and whose candidate for chancellor refutes the widespread impression that the Union and the Greens have the wrong candidates for chancellor, but Olaf Scholz the wrong party . Of course, this requires stepping out of the vague and boldly advocating a policy that is based on the principles of the social market economy and does not shy away from conflict with those who foresee excessive national debt and further expansion of the welfare state for their future.

In view of an election that is about so much, the cross shots from Bavaria seem just as out of place as the tendency of top politicians from other parties to position themselves for government offices. This nonsense can take revenge - if a persistently sluggish election campaign was followed by the nightmare of a government made up of the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party. That would not be just a debacle, it would be fatal.