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Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer
Photo: HANNIBAL HANSCHKE / REUTERS
Actually, it should be decided by the end of this week who will lead the Union as candidate for chancellor in the next election campaign.
This is what NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder announced.
Both presented themselves to the parliamentary group on Tuesday (read more about their appearances there).
But at the CDU and CSU it is apparently unclear how the dispute should be resolved.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul warns the CDU not to let the CSU drift along, as in the refugee crisis: "Exactly the same actors who wanted to wear down Angela Merkel in refugee policy are now trying to denigrate and wear down Armin Laschet," says Reul to SPIEGEL.
In retrospect, the CSU leadership would have asserted that the aggressive behavior of 2015 and 2018 was a mistake - "but now the same people are showing exactly the same behavior."
Obviously, the CSU would not have learned anything.
"The entire CDU is endangered by this behavior," warns Reul.
"The question is: are we chasing short-term moods or are we following our principles?"
Several top politicians in the Union are pushing for a quick decision.
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) appealed to Laschet and Söder to resolve the dispute.
"I suffer from this very difficult situation for the CDU and CSU," said Seehofer of the "Augsburger Allgemeine".
Laschet had spoken of an agreement between the two party leaders.
Söder had brought a negotiating group from both parties into play.
"I can't say how they could do it," said Seehofer.
Söder took part in a meeting of the CSU parliamentary group in Munich on Wednesday.
There it was expected that the parliamentary group would stand behind the CSU boss.
CDU Vice Silvia Breher, who supports Laschet, also called for a quick agreement between the party leaders of the CDU and CSU in the ARD.
She is sure that Laschet and Söder will find a solution, said the Lower Saxony member of the Bundestag in the ARD.
“It is crucial that both are very aware of their responsibility”.
The CDU politician Friedrich Merz attacked Söder again, also demanding a quick result.
He again spoke out in favor of Laschet.
This has the clear vote of the CDU bodies, he emphasized on Deutschlandfunk.
Merz points out that Bavaria is also worse off than North Rhine-Westphalia in the fight against corona.
Söder achieved the worst CSU result in post-war history in the 2018 Bavarian state elections.
In addition, Söder had "waved to the right" in 2018 and is now courting the Greens.
An initiative "Union for Laschet" started by the former CDU member of the Bundestag Stephan Eisel is evidently very popular.
According to the initiative, the former CDU general secretary Ruprecht Polenz, former federal minister Ursula Lehr and other former members of the Bundestag are among the first signatories.
CDU Vice Julia Klöckner contradicted the assessment that the selection process would damage the Union.
"The intensive talks in our party are not an unusual process, after all, after 16 years of Angela Merkel, we are at the end of a successful era and facing a turning point," said the Agriculture Minister of the "Rheinische Post".
"I am very confident that we will manage to go through the Bundestag election as a united and strengthened union."
as / Reuters / dpa