Friedrich Merz exudes a mood as if the Union were three weeks before the federal election in the polls at 35 percent and not 20. The man, who is clearly drawn back into federal politics with enthusiasm, is sitting in a conference room at Konrad-Adenauer on Friday morning House in Berlin and explains the situation of the CDU to two handfuls of journalists.

And his own.

The sun is shining outside, a wonderful late summer day.

Eckart Lohse

Head of the parliamentary editorial office in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

With the CDU, which is now five percentage points behind the SPD, which was believed to be politically dead for a long time, it is like this, according to Merz: With the polls, that is “not nice”.

But it could be helpful because it shook up the whole "troop".

Merz recalls the election in Saxony-Anhalt in June.

It didn't look good for the CDU at first, then after a vigorous election campaign under Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff, it achieved a very good result.

That was one of the last moments when the CDU could still be really optimistic.

Just no shadow cabinet

Merz is sitting there as part of an election campaign team that the CDU chairman and candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet has just presented in the foyer of the party headquarters. Afterwards, the members took some time to explain what the team was all about. These are people who accompanied Laschet in the last weeks of the election campaign, but who would also play “a role” if the Union were to come under government responsibility again, says Merz. Which role, that "will be seen", he adds. Laschet had committed himself to him. Does that mean that he has been accepted for a ministerial office? Then the self-confident Merz fends off. "We're not starting to distribute offices."

Laschet needs Merz's help, at least in the election campaign. Merz is only just beaten twice in the race for the CDU chairmanship, the second time Laschet was the winner. The fans of the man from the Sauerland in the party and in the electorate must bind Laschet, that is only possible with Merz. That's why the chairman lifted it up early on. That alone harbored the risk that Merz, who appeared powerful in the election campaign, outshone Laschet, who always acted as mediator.

That's why Laschet wanted to stop naming Merz for the time being.

There shouldn't be more team, least of all a shadow cabinet.

The official reason was always that there was a government with Union ministers, and that it would be difficult to build up a competing force.

But Laschet's concern may also have played a role that there would be more in a team that outshone him and that the impression would arise that the candidate for chancellor alone is not enough.

Number one is Merz

Although since the decision that Laschet was candidate for chancellor, demands from the CDU came again and again that the chairman had to set up a team, he blocked himself into August. The utmost that could be heard said that one wanted to connect minds with topics in the election campaign. At the end of August it was Merz who, according to a report by the Tagesspiegel, said that Laschet would not set up a team. But then the candidate for chancellor could no longer withstand the pressure from the party in view of the increasingly poor poll numbers.