Politicians of the economic wing and the conservative camp in the CDU advise the Union's candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, to give Friedrich Merz a more important role in the election campaign.
At the beginning of the year Merz had just lost to Laschet in the fight for the CDU chairmanship.
One of his supporters is the Bundestag member Christian von Stetten, who, as head of the SME parliamentary group, leads one of the strongest groups in the CDU / CSU parliamentary group.
Against the background of falling Union polls, he told the FAS that it would be “good if Friedrich Merz would take on a stronger role in the election campaign”.
It should become even clearer that he will "get a prominent position" after the election.
Konrad Schuller
Political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Berlin.
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The Hamburg CDU chairman Christoph Ploß, an exponent of the conservatives in the party, told the FAS that the Union needed “someone like Friedrich Merz, especially to score points with medium-sized companies, family businesses and liberal-conservative voters”. The MP Carsten Linnemann should also play “a central role”. Linnemann is chairman of the CDU SME Association and thus also a man of the economic wing. Two other influential CDU politicians also called for an election campaign team, which should also include Merz. But they did not want to be named in order not to give the impression of a dispute in the Union. Merz has already brought himself into play as a minister. One of his friends said, however, that he would rather see him as head of the Union faction.Then he would be independent of a future Chancellor Laschet and could stand up to him.