In the CSU it was important on Tuesday to present itself as the party of tax relief, also in contrast to its sister party.

CSU General Secretary Markus Blume told the FAZ that what was agreed in the joint election program applies: “Relief instead of burden”.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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The reason for the clarification gave statements by the CDU chairman and Union chancellor candidate Armin Laschet in the ARD summer interview. He had said that “at the moment” he saw no scope for tax breaks, “we don't have the money for that”. Immediately afterwards, the battle of interpretation began over the question of how long the “moment” mentioned by Laschet was. Among other things, Friedrich Merz, a member of the Laschet team, took part, although it was not possible to infer from his statements when exactly it could be so far with relief.

The CSU regional group chairman Alexander Dobrindt, in turn, gave an interview to Merkur in Munich shortly before the retreat of the CSU members of the Bundestag in the Upper Bavarian monastery Seeon, in which he emphasized that exoneration remains "a topic for the next electoral term". This was partly interpreted as a contradiction to Laschet - but in fact Dobrindt's sentence also leaves space and time for a variety of interpretations.

In any case, it tied in seamlessly with the joint election program of the CDU and CSU, which not only linked tax relief with the word “perspective”, but also made it subject to financing. Blume, on the other hand, made it clear to the FAZ that the Union's reliability in terms of discharge had to be documented after the election - “and not at some point”. A permanent reduction in VAT for the catering industry is likely to play a role here, for example.

Laschet will be guest in Seeon on Thursday. At its conference, the CSU regional group also wants to adopt a position paper that contains concrete proposals for financial relief. The demands should then flow into the CSU's own additional election program, which the CSU board wants to decide on Friday next week in a short retreat at Tegernsee. The CSU calls for, among other things, a doubling of the employee savings allowance, the implementation of the third stage of the mother's pension and child splitting based on the model of a spouse splitting.

At the same time, the CSU, which is at least as practiced in the art of both / and as the CDU and its candidate for chancellor, wants to make a "promise of stability" for Bavaria and Germany in the federal election campaign. "So that Germany remains stable" should be the central slogan of the CSU for the federal election.