Nowhere else in Germany do the CDU/CSU and the Greens work together in a coalition for so long and as stably as in Hesse. However, this does not seem to impress Friedrich Merz, the chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and party leader, too much. In any case, on Tuesday in the Wiesbaden state parliament, he reaffirmed his announcement, which had been made shortly before in Berlin, that he would "significantly intensify the dispute, especially with the Greens, in the coming weeks and months."

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent of the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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The question of how the coalition partner of the Union in Hesse should find, Merz answered himself, although the parliamentary group leader Ines Claus stood next to him: "Unreservedly approval" he had received for this position, reported the Sauerlander, who had met shortly before with the members of the state parliament in Wiesbaden.

Impact of energy and economic policies

In the federal and state governments, different issues will be decided, Merz noted. In Berlin, he is now focusing much more on the dramatic effects of energy and economic policy for which the Federal Government is responsible. However, it is by no means excluded that some politicians of the Greens will feel the devastating consequences of federal policy for the lower levels on the spot.

It fills him "with great satisfaction" that black-green government coalitions worked well not only in Wiesbaden, but recently also in North Rhine-Westphalia, Merz continued. "But the CDU is fighting for itself in Hesse." Because the citizens there and in Bavaria would be asked to vote in the state elections on 8 October, this was "an important day for Germany".

In view of their immediate geographical proximity, it is imperative that the two national parties of the Union do as much as possible in the election campaign across borders and together. Both are currently clearly ahead in the polls. However, the CSU gets a vote share of around 40 percent in the Sunday question, the CDU in Hesse, as in the federal government, only about 30 percent. When asked why the party he led was not in a much better position in view of the difficulties of the traffic light government, Merz replied by pointing out that the demographic data had improved over the past year. His goal, he said, was to achieve "steadily and continuously greater approval ratings" for the party, instead of relying on "short-term sensationalism."

Merz and the anti-double-passport campaign

Merz admitted that in the CDU "a team must develop much stronger." Asked about his party's relatively weak support among young people and women, the federal chairman said: "The renewal process is not yet complete." Merz recalled with one sentence that the Hessian CDU had won the state election campaign 24 years ago with a collection of signatures against dual citizenship.

However, the focus he and Claus set on Tuesday was climate policy. Merz countered the Greens' program with the demand for openness to technology, and the chairman of the state parliamentary group added: "We don't want to get out, we want to get in." According to the ideas of the Union in Wiesbaden, Hesse is to become the "leading location for laser-based nuclear fusion".

When it comes to this topic, politicians are pinning their hopes primarily on the start-up Focused Energy, which was spun off from the Technical University of Darmstadt. Billions are needed to use nuclear fusion to move away from fossil fuels. That's why the visit that Merz and Claus will pay to the company on Tuesday was probably also interesting for the host