Friedrich Merz has only reserved the year 2023 for substantive debates. The draft of the new policy programme should be available in September. The debates on this are part of the catching-up process. The aim is to update the programme from 2007 and to work out at least ten points with which the CDU differs more strongly from all other parties and thus to leave the Angela Merkel mainstream behind. Merz calls his goal himself "ambitious", in Pforzheim the CDU met on Thursday evening for the first regional conference for the evaluation of working group meetings.

Rüdiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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Among the guests are the former Prime Ministers of Baden-Württemberg Erwin Teufel and Stefan Mappus as well as Peter Müller from Saarland. The approximately 500 members come from Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and of course Baden-Württemberg. The hall holds 1000 guests, so with 500 members, the regional conference is not exactly overbooked. Most of the members who have come have passed their 50th birthday. "We won't be able to win these elections if we don't know where our basic convictions are," Merz said. Carsten Linnemann, deputy CDU chairman, said at the opening in the Pforzheim Congress Center that the CDU needed a new basic melody and clear points of distinction.

The CDU has never been a programme party, it is always calibrated to pragmatic governance, it will no longer become a programme party, but in view of completely new domestic and global political challenges, it urgently needs the new programme. Of course, the discussion process also serves to mobilize and prepare for the election campaign, so that the depressive mood after the election defeat in 2021 should finally be overcome. This is another reason why the Pforzheim Conference is more of a mixture of party congress, election campaign and working group meetings for self-assurance.

At least as ambitious as the Greens

The members are asked about the values of the CDU and the great challenges, they type their answers into their smartphones and in the word clouds then appear the terms that are traditionally associated with the CDU anyway: Christian image of man, subsidiarity, charity, Europe. And among the challenges, the words "migration" and (somewhat smaller) "climate protection" are on the screen and thus the focus of the party's interest. Members of Parliament Andreas Jung (for sustainability), Ronja Kemmer (for digitization), Daniel Caspary (for security) and the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Economic Affairs Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut (for prosperity) will be interviewed on stage. In response to Linnemann's question about what the new program should stand for, what roots of the CDU it should work out, Kenner says the CDU must be "courageous and innovative," while Caspary replies that one must define what image of Germany and Europe the CDU wants to have. The future program, says Jung, should not only contain individual demands, it must contain a "picture of society".

In his speech and in the subsequent discussion, Friedrich Merz manages to become concrete: He will not adopt a program that does not contain very concrete steps to achieve the climate protection goals. "I can even imagine that with modern technology we could manage to be faster than we discussed at world climate conferences," says Merz, promising to be at least as ambitious as the Greens when it comes to climate protection. The programme will certainly also include a proposal on the accumulation of assets by employees for old-age provision. In addition, Merz announces that the system of case lump sums for the billing of hospital services has outlived itself and must be reformed.

In many speeches by CDU members, a clear annoyance with the system of public broadcasting and the fear of restrictions on freedom of expression due to the dominance of left-wing parties is expressed.

At the end, after three hours, Linnemann – as deputy CDU chairman and head of the policy commission – summarizes the debate once again, the new CDU program must necessarily contain two summary pages: "On the one hand, there must be our principles, on the other hand, the five to ten demands with which we distinguish ourselves from the others." Then he adds another sentence: "If this succeeds, it will be the foundation for the way back to the Chancellery." Talking about principles in 2023, devoting oneself to local and European elections in 2024, returning to the chancellor or chancellors in 2025 – that is the roadmap into which the current regional conferences are fitted.