You fought successfully for Armin Laschet to become the Union's candidate for chancellor. From today's perspective, was that a good idea, Mr Bouffier?
Eckart Lohse
Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.
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Yes.
I've known him for a long time.
To make it short: Armin Laschet can be Chancellor.
Why?
Of the three candidates for chancellor, he is the only one who is head of government in a large federal state.
That makes a difference whether you can show that you can lead a country and stick a coalition together, and with great success.
First he has to become chancellor. Is Laschet a good campaigner?
We don't have to ignore it: We imagined everything a little differently.
The union election campaign went very well until mid-July.
Then the tide came.
The Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, also the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, demanded that from morning to night.
For weeks.
In addition, an election campaign was only possible to a limited extent.
In addition, a picture like the one we saw didn't help either.
But now we finally need to talk about content, not a laugh, a résumé or a book.
Incidentally, it is not candidates for chancellor that are elected, but parties.
Not only the candidate for chancellor has bad poll ratings, but also the Union.
I cannot see that the Union is being rejected in principle.
We have to admit, however: Mr. Scholz manages to hide his party, the SPD, quite well.
But whoever votes for the SPD gets the whole party: Ms. Esken, Mr. Kühnert and whatever else is on offer.
They stand for a left shift in politics in Germany.
If we succeed in making it clear that it is a question of whether a Union or a left-wing alliance with the SPD will determine the course of government, then we have a good chance of making substantial gains.
I have no illusions: this will be a tough fight, but we will fight.
You said that the flood distracted Laschet from the election campaign. In 2002, Gerhard Schröder turned the floods in East Germany into an election campaign event that helped him a lot.
The situation was different back then.
It would not have worked to try a remake of the Schröder election campaign and march through in rubber boots.
Armin Laschet, on the other hand, did everything to help the people in the flood areas.
If you say that issues should finally be discussed, isn't it a problem that your competitors are focusing on the same big things as the Union, especially climate policy?
We have to make the differences in the matter clear.
Armin Laschet rightly says that in all climate protection measures Germany must ensure that it remains a strong industrialized country.
We have to combine the necessary reduction in harmful emissions with new economic growth and thus with jobs.
That is not a priority with the Greens, and with the SPD I also have my doubts.
The Social Democrats are planning more or less nationwide tax increases.
Introduce wealth tax, increase inheritance tax.
We think that's wrong.
Surely that hits exactly those from whom we expect a contribution to emerge vigorously from the economic crisis that caused the pandemic.
Why is it not possible to make such differences the big issue of the election campaign?
You are right: the substantive differences between us and the other parties have not yet become really clear.
Why does the Union not have the courage to say: we are going to cut taxes, but mostly speaks of the fact that it is against increases?
We said we don't want to increase taxes and we want to abolish the solidarity surcharge entirely.
We also want tax relief for families, especially families with children.
Therefore there will be no abolition of family splitting with us.
The child allowance is to be increased.
That is a significant tax cut.
Incidentally, when the Union rules, the country is usually doing well.
The last 16 years have shown that.
Armin Laschet played an important role in the exit from coal-fired power generation as Prime Minister of a large coal country. Why can't he score points in the dispute over climate policy?