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CSU General Secretary Martin Huber

Photo: Peter Kneffel / dpa

CDU leader Friedrich Merz does not want to rule out a possible coalition with the Greens at the federal level. Now the headwind is growing from within our own camp.

“Black-green is not a model for the future,” said CSU General Secretary Martin Huber to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). The chairman of the Junge Union, Johannes Winkel, told the portal “ZDFHeute” that 18 months before the federal election was not the time for coalition speculation. "But what you can already say is that the black-green coalition at the federal level is beyond the political imagination."

Merz wrote an email to supporters at the weekend about future coalition options for the Union, which is currently by far the strongest force in surveys. He had kept open alliances with all three parties in the current traffic light coalition. He named the SPD and the Greens as possible partners in the event that a coalition with the FDP was not enough. "Not a particularly tempting prospect, but there must be a majority capable of governing," he wrote in his newsletter.

Merz also argued with the example of Hesse, where Prime Minister Boris Rhein, as the election winner, conducted explorations with the SPD and the Greens and then decided on the Social Democrats as a coalition partner. "If the Hessian CDU had ruled out a coalition with the Greens from the outset - as many members and voters demanded - this exploration of the best success in the interest of the CDU would not have been possible, the SPD would have appeared much more self-confident," says Merz . There should also be no alternative to a coalition.

JU boss Winkel now argued: "The green zeitgeist of the decade, which unfortunately also affected the Union, is the cause of many of the fundamental problems in Germany." Therefore, the signal must be very clear: "Black-green is not a model for the future."

Merz is aiming for a change in policy

CSU politician Huber renewed the fundamental criticism of the Greens, which recently determined the tone of the CDU and CSU towards the party. "With their policy of ideological paternalism, the Greens are primarily responsible for the bad mood in the country," he said. In contrast, he argued that the CSU stood for a “politics of the reality of life”. “The CSU and the Greens simply don’t fit together.”

In his newsletter, however, Merz also made it clear that he was aiming for a "policy change" in the next federal election compared to the current traffic light government of the SPD, Greens and FDP. “In foreign and security policy as well as in energy and climate policy, in economic policy as well as in labor market and social policy,” he wrote. The Bundestag will be re-elected regularly in 2025.

Advertisement for the black-green option at the federal level most recently came from Baden-Württemberg, where a green-black alliance has ruled since 2016. Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) rated the chances for such an alliance in Berlin after the next federal election in 2025 as “very good”. “We need this connection between ecology and economy,” argued Kretschmann. The state's interior minister, CDU politician Thomas Strobl, said that based on the good experiences in Baden-Württemberg, he could not recommend Merz to do it with the Greens under any circumstances. "The opposite is the case."

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