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Friedrich Merz at the Young Union's Germany Day
Photo: Bernd Thissen / dpa
The CDU politician Friedrich Merz has recognized the SPD, Greens and FDP for their exploratory paper, with which the traffic light parties are now heading towards coalition negotiations.
"I think you have presented a substantial paper," Merz told the editorial network in Germany.
"This is an occasion for respect and critical self-examination: we could have had that too."
Merz expressed himself in a completely different tenor than Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU), who had criticized the traffic light paper as an "uncovered check for the future".
CSU regional group leader Dobrindt also attacked the explorers and accused them of "left-wing dreaming".
Merz expects that there will now be a traffic light coalition.
»Today's paper shows the willingness to reach agreement and the willingness to govern together.
We should prepare ourselves to be the opposition. «The ex-parliamentary group leader is traded alongside other top politicians as a possible candidate for the successor to CDU leader Armin Laschet.
Laschet faces the party’s youngsters just under three weeks after the Union’s disastrous performance in the Bundestag election on Saturday. At the German Day of the Junge Union (JU) in Münster, the focus is on the renewal of the CDU in terms of personnel and content. JU boss Tilman Kuban had said at the start of Germany Day that the Union had recently behaved like a heap of chickens. Merz described the sister parties as a "serious restructuring case at risk of insolvency".
Health Minister Jens Spahn will also speak in Münster and take a position in a discussion.
The eagerly awaited meeting between Laschet and CSU boss Markus Söder is canceled.
Instead, Söder would take part in a basic conference of the CSU, it said at short notice on Thursday from Munich.
The CSU chairman was inferior to Laschet in the power struggle for the Union's candidacy for chancellor, his cross shots against Laschet had triggered criticism.
Söder is now pleading for a new cooperation between the two sister parties.
"In terms of style and content, we should move closer together again instead of talking publicly about each other," Söder told the "Welt am Sonntag".
"The CSU will therefore not give any public advice, but - if so desired - help to stabilize the Union."
"That was a unique election campaign that we will all work through together," said Söder.
"But it is important that we get away from blame and talk to each other again." With a traffic light government, there could be a political change of epochs, so it is important that the CDU and CSU show a new unity.
"We have to become the bulwark against a left slide in Germany."
dab / dpa
