Will the Union's mask affair be undoing in the election year?
A new poll shows unimagined effects - ministers publicly clash.
The mask affair caught the Union coldly in the election year - currently, bitter effects on the polls are noticeable.
GroKo and black-green suddenly move into the distance.
The parties are apparently startled.
The CDU and CSU are even thinking of new "binding" lobby rules.
Two ministers even got into an argument online: Agriculture Minister Klöckner tried to draw attention to the SPD.
Berlin / Munich - The mask affair is hard on the Union: Only on Monday, and apparently at the insistence of the party and faction leaders, the two men withdrew from the CDU and CSU in the eye of the hurricane: Nikolas Löbel and Georg Nüßlein left the parties.
At least Löbel also resigned his parliamentary mandate.
But there are already effects on the polls - just before the important state elections in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate.
And in the GroKo, emotions are increasingly high, as a public ministerial dispute on Twitter suggested.
Survey before the federal election: Union is sinking even further - GroKo and black-green suddenly in danger
In any case, the latest survey figures are tantamount to a blow in the pit of the stomach for the Union parties.
In February, the Union had been estimated at up to 37 percent.
In an Insa survey on behalf of the
picture
, the sister parties are now only 30 percent in the Sunday question - and thus another 2.5 percentage points lower than in the previous week.
In a survey that ran until March 3 and was published on Sunday, the Kantar Institute saw the Union at 32 percent.
The latest result could already reflect the mask scandal.
A total of 2009 citizens were surveyed from Friday to Monday.
If the result of the federal election would also look like this, it would have noticeable consequences: Since the SPD and the Greens remained stable at 17 percent, according to Insa, suddenly neither Green-Black nor a renewed grand coalition would have a majority - a fact that FDP parliamentary deputy Alexander Graf Lambsdorff celebrated in a tweet as "really great".
Meanwhile, the left won, which increased from 8 to 9 percent, as well as the AfD and FDP.
Both parties rise by half a percentage point to 11.5 and 10.5 percent respectively.
CDU / CSU: Mask scandal leaves its mark - parties are thinking of new lobby rules after Nüßlein, Löbel and Spahn
It was only on Monday afternoon that it became known that Nüßlein was leaving the CSU.
The party presidium declared that the step was “inevitable”, also in order to avert damage to the CSU - it also called for the resignation of the mandate and “reparation”.
Markus Söder's party now even seemed to indicate readiness for new lobby rules: they are committed to ensuring that the required rules of conduct "in parliaments are much more valid and binding than before," it said.
Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus and CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt also tried to limit the damage.
Among other things, they announced a new “code of conduct” on Monday.
This will go well beyond what is legally expected of members of the Bundestag, it says in a letter to the Union MPs, from which the dpa quoted.
"We will introduce a regime of requirements and sanctions within our parliamentary group that clearly defines what behavior we expect from a CDU / CSU member of the Bundestag, which secondary activities are compatible with membership in our parliamentary group and which are not." that are directly related to the area of responsibility of a member of the parliamentary group should be excluded.
The parliamentary group leadership will also immediately submit proposals for more transparency in secondary activities.
"In addition, we want to significantly lower the limit of 10,000 euros above which party donations must be listed in the parties' reports" - this limit had recently also played a role in an uproar around Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU).
CDU in the swirl of polls: Merkel's ministers get into a dispute - Klöckner and Heil are tying up on Twitter
Meanwhile, the SPD is putting a lot of pressure on the coalition partner in Berlin.
The Rhineland-Palatinate head of government, Malu Dreyer, did not want to see an “election campaign gift” in the processes during a company visit to Mainz - but made all the more violent reproaches to the Union: “No politician benefits from this.
It damages all politics, ”she said.
Meanwhile, Angela Merkel's ministers Julia Klöckner (CDU) and Hubertus Heil (SPD) got into quarreling on Twitter.
Klöckner attacked Heil and the SPD: "Dear Hubertus", wrote the Minister of Agriculture, referring to Heil's demand for a statement from the Union leaders, "the Union has taken a clear position, Armin Laschet + Markus Söder have condemned the action".
Klöckner drew attention to the case of the SPD member Marcus Held, who at the end of 2020 was accused of infidelity, fraud and corruption in connection with the sale of land - and who is still sitting in the Bundestag: "Here too, a clear statement would be important."
Heil then made it clear that he canceled the tweet quoted by Klöckner
before
Laschet and Söder commented on Sunday.
“The matter is also not a private matter for the CDU and CSU, because this behavior is tarnishing the reputation of the entire parliament.
Your outrage should therefore apply to this behavior, "countered Heil - so at least you stayed with" you ".
It is becoming increasingly unlikely that Klöckner and Heil will meet again in a GroKo.
The CDU MP Lobel, like his CSU colleague Nüßlein, is involved in a corruption affair over fees for mask business.
They are said to have collected six-figure commissions for brokering business with corona protective masks.
(
fn with material from AFP and dpa
)
