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The CDU has had a new chairman since Saturday noon.
To what extent the election of Armin Laschet will contribute to the settlement of internal disputes and power issues among the conservatives, of course, remains to be seen.
However, it is all the less questionable that an important personnel issue has been clarified with a view to the election year 2021.
“Leadership in times of crisis - what kind of politics does Germany need now?” Was the headline of the “Anne Will” broadcast, which, among other things, was intended to answer the very question of what signal the new CDU chairman sent out.
However, the hero of the story was missing because Armin Laschet wasn't even there.
Volker Bouffier, Prime Minister of Hesse and CDU vice-president, discussed this.
The rest of the round consisted of party leaders without exception: Robert Habeck for the Greens, Markus Söder for the CSU, Saskia Esken for the SPD and Christian Lindner for the FDP.
First of all, the K question
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If Laschet is now party leader, he will also be a candidate for chancellor - and will it not be Söder?
Anne Will wanted to know this again and again from both Union representatives.
But it didn't help.
Bouffier and Söder avoided the questions in every conceivable way, but at least emphasized two conditions that should lead to the decision at some point in the distant future - after all, the Bundestag election is still an eternity, as Bouffier noted, and the way leads, moreover, yes via state and local elections.
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First condition: Laschet and Söder make a proposal together.
"It does not depend on the ego of an individual," said Söder - which of course can also be understood as a rejection of the much-touted "first access right" of the CDU chairman.
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Second condition: The one with the greatest chance of success should do it.
But under no circumstances could these be derived from survey results, even if of course every party looks at surveys, said Bouffier.
"But that's not a substitute for a strategy."
Personnel question decided, question of direction open?
Will nevertheless used the opportunity for a quick poll and asked the chairmen of the Greens, FDP and SPD who were present for their interpretations of the Union party conference.
Robert Habeck was ambivalent: “There is now a personnel decision.
For me it would be exciting to see what the Union’s decision on direction is - and I believe it has not been made. "
The Greens boss made this possible, for example, in the "pissing" behavior of the defeated Friedrich Merz and in the fact that Laschet did not respond to the requests of former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to exclude the Hungarian Viktor Orban from the conservative, European party family.
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FDP leader Lindner clearly disagreed.
He does believe that “the CDU federal party congress sent out a first signal of direction”.
When deciding in favor of Laschet and against Merz, it was clear that the pro-European stance of the first was further ahead than an agenda for economic recovery, for which Merz stood.
Saskia Esken had her doubts about that.
"I am completely with Mr. Habeck that it must first be clarified whether the direction has been decided." Because the result of the vote was anything but clear.
The SPD chairwoman also saw Merz's idea of wanting to join the current cabinet as a sign of continuing unrest among the conservatives.
The British virus variant as an unknown threat
And then it was about Corona - also and especially about the mutated variant from Great Britain, against which there is little that could be done in this country with the previous strategy to combat pandemics.
The problem began earlier, however, as the discussants agreed.
"We haven't sequenced enough in the last few months so that we don't know exactly how the mutation develops in us," criticized Esken.
At the moment, Germany is already more or less flying blind when the mutant is recognized.
"We really have to sequence more now," demanded Söder.
The question is how dangerous and how widespread the new variant is.
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Bouffier hopes to find answers to this from British scientists.
This week they will be present as experts at the deliberations of the Prime Ministers and the Federal Government.
Habeck warned against a loss of authority of the state.
"We are talking in a fog because we do not spend enough money on the part of the state." That is not compatible with the proud "We have everything under control" tone that prevails in some places in politics, Habeck denounced in the direction of Markus Söder.
All are for home office
The request to let significantly more people work in the home office again, probably nobody represented as vehemently as SPD boss Esken, but everyone in the group was in favor of it - sometimes with small comments, of course.
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Esken initially demanded that we now have to go beyond appeals.
For them, the right to work from home is not only a necessary measure - for example with consequential effects such as relieving the burden on local public transport - but also an opportunity with a view to ecology or the compatibility of life and work.
Markus Söder also wanted home office - "as much as possible and wherever possible".
But he suggested making the whole thing more attractive for companies through tax breaks.
Christian Linder, who is also “absolutely in favor”, remarked that home office and home schooling as a combination is a heavy burden for many families.
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Nevertheless: "Wherever it is possible, you have to do it." Making home office a legal claim - that is, transferring the burden of justification to those who do not make it possible - is what Habeck currently considers to be one of the most effective and quickest possible corona measures, namely by federal law.
There is no need for an agreement between the prime ministers.
Volker Bouffier, however, had his objections, because at the latest in the practical implementation it would very much depend on the countries.
“The federal government has no authorities, all of this has to be done by the federal states,” the Hessian Prime Minister clarified.