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The moderator says the three men at the table would make a good game of Skat.

Friedrich Merz immediately takes up the joke to warm up.

"Let's play Doppelkopf, then they'll join in," says the 65-year-old former Union parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag.

Merz still has the capacity to let his charm play.

Armin Laschet, 59, and Norbert Röttgen, 55, smile next to him.

For the second time, the three candidates for the CDU party chairmanship have come together to present themselves publicly.

In mid-December, the CDU convened the first joint round.

That was before the Christmas break and before the controversy about the bumpy start of vaccination in the pandemic.

One week remains until the first digital party congress, at which around a thousand delegates decide on the successor to the outgoing party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The candidates have once again increased their frequency in the media, with interviews, statements in social media and internal video calls.

The last phase of a ten-month election campaign is underway.

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It has long been clear what makes the three candidates tick, and big surprises in terms of content are no longer to be expected.

It has become clear that politically they tick very similarly, so it depends more on accentuations, daily form and personal style.

Shortly before, a new survey was announced, according to which Laschet had caught up with the others, and the board of the women's union has spoken out in favor of Laschet and Röttgen.

On the one hand, this is good news for Laschet, who was behind in comparison, but even better news for Röttgen, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Bundestag, who for a long time was only considered an outsider.

In this second round of candidates, which is broadcast by the Phoenix broadcaster, Laschet often looks at his competitors very seriously and with a critically cloudy forehead.

At one point, North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister's fingers itchy so much that they drum lightly on the table, while Merz makes an almost carefree impression and Röttgen argues rather concentrated, sober, and sometimes urgent.

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First you do a kind of “speed dating”, as the presenter calls it.

You should draw cards with questions, answer yes or no, and give reasons in a maximum of 30 seconds.

Raise taxes to meet the debt brake?

“No,” says Laschet.

Introduce legal right to work from home?

“No,” says Merz.

Reduce data protection in favor of the Corona warning app?

“I think that's wrong,” says Röttgen.

Laschet intervened for the first time.

For reasons of health protection, he considers it permissible to relax data protection so that other restrictions on fundamental rights can then be withdrawn: "If we can use this to better fight the pandemic, I would say yes, we can reduce it." Merz closes specifically to: "We need to know where the infections come from."

Even a few minutes later, on the first major issue of climate protection, Laschet reacted critically to the two of them.

All three emphasize that greater efforts must be made in climate protection, that this should be done with market-based incentives and not with bans as the Greens propagated.

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"We have to hurry, we have to do more," warns Röttgen, who was Federal Environment Minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet from 2009 to 2012.

Röttgen speaks about the need for a European solution and that climate protection must become part of international trade policy.

It is unacceptable that China is gaining competitive advantages "through eco- and social dumping".

Laschet indirectly accuses Röttgen of naivety and describes that things are going differently in the “world that you have just painted so beautifully”.

There are companies that are emigrating, and everything must be done to ensure that they remain in Germany and that the requirements are not continuously increased.

When it comes to the pricing of CO2 emissions introduced at the beginning of the year, which is causing gasoline prices to rise, Laschet reacts annoyed.

Röttgen and Merz praise it as an important eco-political instrument.

“Maybe for people who don't pay for gas so easily, there are also conflicts, and also social issues,” Laschet interjects.

He also thinks the pricing is correct, “but to just dismiss it like that, from a corner, then the fuel costs 20 cents more, is too easy.

We have to keep society together ”.

When it comes to internal security later, Laschet feels provoked again.

All three speak out in favor of a consistent zero tolerance policy, which Laschet can deduce from his government policy.

Merz even praises North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul for his work ("Chapeau").

Röttgen is in favor of more deportations of Islamist threats.

He considered the previously applicable general ban on deportation to Syria to be wrong.

Laschet looks over at him half mockingly and asks how he is going to deport someone.

Again it alludes to the fact that the reality is different from Röttgen's idea, because deportations to Syria are unlikely to be possible so far, even in individual cases, because there is a mortal danger for those at risk in their homeland.

Röttgen says it is primarily about the signal that endangered persons must not feel safe in Germany and that deportations to the northern part of Syria should also be examined in individual cases.

"Show people that we can take responsibility"

Laschet's eye-catching interventions fit into his narrative: since he announced his candidacy as part of the team with Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn almost eleven months ago, he has made concrete policy instead of drafting theories.

Laschet is counting on this difference in this second round as well and shows that he is the practitioner, the official, the man of the executive among the applicants.

At the end, he emphasizes this in the closing words: "We are measured by whether we show people through good governance that we can take responsibility, that we can make difficult decisions."

Röttgen, on the other hand, emphasizes that he spent ten months in intensive exchange with the CDU.

“I'm not a camp, I stand for everyone,” he says.

The CDU should become more female, younger and more digital.

Merz speaks of a new departure and ecological renewal of the social market economy.

This underpins the well-known distribution of roles: Since the keeper of the Grail of continuity, there Röttgen and Merz, have an eye on changes.

These narratives, which have been cultivated over months, are not free of contradictions, but the different accents should help the delegates as a guide when they vote on the new party leader on January 16.