As if the brewery had not already suffered enough from Corona, the news made the rounds on the Friday before the CSU party congress that the CSU, which claims to be not only the patroness of the brewers and restaurateurs, but also the Beer drinker sees that she refrains from serving alcohol at her Nuremberg party congress.

The corresponding was noted on an invitation flyer.

The outcry on social media was considerable - but the CSU was able to give the all-clear almost immediately: The notice came from a time when there was an alcohol ban on the entire exhibition grounds due to Corona.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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The correction was important insofar as the party people could take a long swig from the jug.

Most recently, when asked who the Bavarians would vote for in the federal election, the CSU came up with a desolate 28 percent in a poll.

In order to endure that, you need at least the two measures that the former Prime Minister Günther Beckstein once brought into play as the maximum measure for the driving ability of decent Bavarians.

"We do everything for mutual success"

After so many months of mainly virtual get-togethers, beer for everyone was a more constructive signal than what Secretary General Markus Blume had sent via the magazine "Spiegel" before the party congress. "Of course we would be better off with Markus Söder," he said, but not just with reference to Bavaria, as he wanted to have said afterwards, that would have been decent and certainly true. But as evidenced by the interview text, he was referring to the whole of the Union and to all of Germany. At the end of the conversation, he did not refuse to answer the question of which slogan a candidate for Chancellor Söder would have printed on the election posters (“Ready for Germany”). Can you do that as a party leadership - but then you shouldn't complain about it,that the press allegedly writes far too much of taunts from Munich against Armin Laschet.

At the party congress, Blume said regretfully, “Sometimes one is too clear” - and thus again offered an example of the current tendency of the CSU to not necessarily make things better through alleged repair work. In any case, he had not maneuvered himself into a particularly comfortable situation when he climbed the stage to open the party congress, at which Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet is to speak this Saturday. "We do everything for mutual success," shouted Blume in a not exactly seething hall, in which Markus Söder, due to the corona, had previously moved in with great sobriety.

However, the party leader then managed to bring the hall to operating temperature.

His speech took up building blocks of his previous campaign appearances - but with clear shifts in emphasis, which can confidently be seen as an answer to the good polls from Olaf Scholz and the SPD.

Söder urged his party that they had to do justice to the words of their honorary chairman Edmund Stoiber, according to which the CSU was doing policy for the Leberkäs instead of the caviar floor.

He suggested doubling the housing benefit and giving small and medium-sized businesses such as butchers, hairdressers and bakers more tax relief.

"Reject this immoral offer from the left"

Climate protection was mentioned in Söder's speech, but not as central as it used to be. Instead, a new topic emerged that the CSU wanted to avoid a few weeks ago: gender. "We as the CSU do not accept any gender law or gender parking tickets," said Söder. "We are a free state and not a reeducation state, common sense counts for us."

Söder tried above all to address the regular electorate.

He pointed out that the Free Voters do not move into the Bundestag in life and that every vote for them is not only lost, but would be in much better hands with the CSU anyway.

From the FDP he demanded a clear rejection of a traffic light government with the SPD and the Greens.

He wanted to know from Christian Lindner's FDP: “Do you want the traffic light or not?” The FDP had to declare “that they reject this immoral offer from the left,” demanded Söder.

This was confirmed with 87.6 percent of the votes in the office of party leader.

Measured against the bad poll values ​​of the Union including the CSU, that's quite good, measured against the result two years ago when Söder received 91.3 percent, and given that an important election is due in two weeks, it's not that good .