Enlarge image
CDU MP Ronja Kemmer will represent the young at the top of the party in the future
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO
"Renewal" is the keyword of the hour at the CDU, also with the staff.
»Obviously we don't have enough topics that are interesting enough for young people.
So we have to work on it," said the new chairman Friedrich Merz at the digital party conference.
He had already set one goal in advance: the party's leadership team should be more female and younger than before.
His wish has come true, the young generation is among the winners of the party conference: All seven applications from the young party juniors for the presidency and national executive committee were successful.
The CDU is old, the average age of the members is 61 years.
In the Bundestag elections, around a third of those over 60 opted for the Union.
Among the under-30s, the CDU and CSU only got eleven percent.
Merz, himself 66 years old, recognized the problem.
He called on the Junge Union to nominate its own candidate for the re-election of the party presidency.
So far, the JU has been represented on the federal executive board, but not on the presidium - the smaller and more powerful party body.
That's over now.
Member of the Bundestag Ronja Kemmer will be a JU representative in the presidium in the future, a small coup.
With 70 percent, she not only achieved a better result than ex-Health Minister Jens Spahn, who moved into the presidency with only around 60 percent.
Kemmer also prevailed against an experienced competitor: Annette Widmann-Mauz, who sat on the presidium of the CDU for three years, did not make it through, although she is the head of the Women's Union and ran at their suggestion.
Kemmer is a digital politician and representative for artificial intelligence of the Union faction.
At the age of 32, she will significantly lower the average age in the presidency - so far nobody under 40 has sat there.
"After such a difficult year, it's important to position yourself more broadly within the party," said Kemmer in advance of her candidacy.
Of course, not every conflict can be broken down into old and young.
"But the election results show why young voices also need to be heard in the party."
Time for young minds
The CDU was part of the government for a long time and, in this capacity, dealt a lot with external crises, said Kemmer.
Now you have to look more inwards.
"Many fundamental questions have been left unanswered in recent times, which we must now address." She wanted the party "to become more campaignable and aggressive again".
However, Kemmer is not the only one who made it from the ranks of the youngsters to the leadership of the CDU at the party conference.
The Junge Union also entered six candidates for the federal executive board.
All were successful, not a matter of course given the 39 applications for 26 places:
Birte Glißmann,
29 years old, state chairman of the JU Schleswig-Holstein, drafted an anti-sexism plan for her association after a sexist saying by a party colleague.
Jessica Heller,
31 years old, city councilor in Leipzig, worked, among other things, as a nurse in the intensive care unit.
Bastian Schneider,
31 years old, judge, was called to the North Rhine-Westphalian State Chancellery under the then Prime Minister Armin Laschet.
Johannes Steiniger,
34, has been a member of the Bundestag since 2013 and was one of the first CDU members to openly speak out in favor of Markus Söder as a candidate for chancellor last year.
Laura Hopmann,
32, is the youngest member of the CDU in Lower Saxony's state parliament and is committed, among other things, to creating incentives for fathers to take more parental leave.
Wiebke Winter,
25 years old, Chairwoman of the JU Bremen and co-founder of the Climate Union, which wants to bring the CDU policy to a 1.5 degree line.
The JU makes up almost a quarter of the members of the committee, Winter remains the youngest member of the board.
She had already been elected to the federal executive board at the last party conference.
Since then, Winter has witnessed her party's failure in the federal election from the front row.
Not only because she was on the board, but also because she had applied for a seat in the Bundestag and lost.
Of course, she's been thinking about the CDU's poor results since then, says Winter.
And of course she is also concerned about the low proportion of votes among young voters.
"At the end of the campaign, we just weren't sexy enough," says Winter.
"We must now use this time to think about the party, free from government constraints."
Foreseeable differences
Winter also thinks that the CDU needs other faces in the future, that it should be “younger and more feminine” – but without quotas.
And you have to sharpen your content profile again.
"If you ask people what the CDU stands for, they have to think of something immediately." If Winter could choose the keywords that come to mind, they would include: "the connection between economy, ecology and social issues". .
So far, however, the CDU has not been primarily associated with this combination.
As a climate politician who is fighting for a 1.5-degree-compliant strategy, Winter could act as a counterweight to the new chairman on the board.
At least so far, Merz has not yet distinguished itself as a pioneer in climate protection.
However, Winter is not bothered by these differences.
"Mr. Merz and I certainly have different opinions, but I think he's an intelligent and differentiated politician," says Winter.
But she will continue to fight "like a lioness" on the board for a climate policy that is in line with the Paris climate protection goals.
Although the party remains old, the young people in the CDU now have more influence in the CDU than seldom.
It has been a long time since there has been such a renewal in the party leadership, Merz stated at the end of the party conference that on average they had become five years younger.
"And that's despite the fact that I was elected Federal Chairman."