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Stuttgart (dpa) - Shortly before the decision on the CDU party chairmanship, all three applicants made the promise to overcome the rifts and camp thinking in the party after their election.
NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet, ex-parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz and foreign politician Norbert Röttgen were digitally connected to a retreat of the Baden-Württemberg parliamentary group on Wednesday.
Merz, who has many supporters in the Southwest CDU, assured that if he was elected CDU leader, he wanted to prevent a break with the Merkel era.
"After Angela Merkel, shaping the time - whether we want it or not - is perceived by the population in Germany as a deep turning point," said Merz.
«I want to do everything I can to prevent it from breaking.
It won't be a break.
We'd be completely crazy if we did it differently. "
But even after Corona it will not return to normal.
A number of national and international tasks would be faced in the country.
The future CDU party leader will shape the face of the party and the country.
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On the weekend, the successor to party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will be elected at a digital party congress.
It was good that the current situation would then be over, said Merz.
It was difficult for Kramp-Karrenbauer to keep the store together.
She managed that.
"But of course you can still see that the party is now not as strongly led as it should be."
After the election, the party must show unity, no matter who wins the race, stressed Merz.
Because the eight months to the federal election would fly by.
"We will all be on the stage at the end of the party congress - when the national anthem is not sung, but when it is played," he said.
In principle, he promised in the event of his election: "I will really do nothing else than to take care of the party until the federal election and beyond."
The CDU must create unity, said the candidate Laschet.
"A future government must reflect the breadth of the party even more."
The CDU had to do the trick of keeping the people who particularly valued Angela Merkel as a person, while at the same time finding answers to future issues of the time after Merkel.
The CDU must address its economic competence and internal security in the election campaign.
One should not only talk about the Green Deal, but also talk more about industrial production and jobs, that would be neglected for him.
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Laschet's candidacy for the federal presidency is supported by CDU parliamentary group leaders from five state parliaments.
In a joint statement, the parliamentary group leaders from North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Bremen, Thuringia and Brandenburg campaigned on Wednesday for the delegates of the digital CDU federal party conference to elect Laschet as the new CDU chairman on Saturday.
Norbert Röttgen also called for party cohesion for the time after the party congress.
"If we can't do it credibly and really, then God help us," he said, referring to the upcoming elections this year.
«I am not a warehouse.
I can and want to represent the entire party, ”promised Röttgen.
Despite all the commitment to unity, Laschet used the brief appearance in front of the Southwest MPs for an attack on his competitor Röttgen.
He had previously expressed himself critical of cooperation with the FDP with a view to the upcoming federal election.
"You can't rely on a party that sometimes wants to govern and then doesn't," Röttgen said of the Augsburger Allgemeine.
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He considered insulting the FDP to be a fundamental mistake, countered Laschet.
"That drives everyone into the traffic light."
Laschet called Röttgen's statements dangerous.
He tries to keep a line with FDP party leader Christian Lindner.
"The moment may come when we need it," said Laschet.
He prefers a Jamaica alliance with the Greens and the FDP to black and green.
«Because we also need a corrective.
That is why I would like a strong FDP for the federal election. "
With the Greens, the CDU has to lead fundamental debates on every topic - "especially at the federal level with many left-wing Greens".
That is much more difficult than a coalition with the FDP.
Laschet warned particularly urgently against a traffic light coalition of the Greens, SPD and FDP.
«That is the most difficult thing: a coalition of the SPD, which covers the social, the Greens, and the FDP, which then covers the economic part - what then does the CDU do about it?
That is the great danger for both Baden-Württemberg and the Federal Republic of Germany. "
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210113-99-15094 / 2