CDU Congress in Stuttgart: Chancellor Merz and Christian Democrats Unite Ahead of State Elections

The CDU congress concluded in Stuttgart became a show of strength for Friedrich Merz, who received a strong mandate to continue leading the party. The biggest surprise was the scale of loyalty declared by the head of Bavaria's CSU, Markus Söder. The Bavarian leader not only supported Merz but openly suggested a desire to continue cooperation with the current chancellor even after the next federal elections. Söder used the platform in Stuttgart to launch a sharp attack on the far-right AfD and The Left party, and to remind the smaller coalition partner, the SPD, that the Christian Democrats are "number one" in the current governing arrangement. In the economic sphere, Chancellor Merz confirmed the primacy of budgetary discipline. Despite the March 2025 reform of the debt brake and the creation of a special-purpose fund, the head of government firmly ruled out any further easing of borrowing limits before the end of the current term in 2029. Merz also announced a precise schedule for reforming the pension and healthcare systems. The first concrete proposals for changes in healthcare are to be presented by the end of March, and the entire package of social reforms is to be ready by December of this year. The relationship between the CDU and CSU, described as a "marriage of convenience," has defined the German political scene for decades. The most serious crisis occurred in 1976 when Franz Josef Strauß threatened to break off cooperation with the CDU at the federal level, which would have led to the creation of two separate nationwide parties. A key point of the deliberations was the issue of security and relations with opposition parties. The Minister-President of Saxony-Anhalt, Sven Schulze, and other prominent CDU politicians such as Jens Spahn, firmly confirmed the maintenance of a cordon sanitaire towards the AfD. These declarations came in response to voices from some local activists in eastern states demanding a revision of this policy. In the international context, attention was drawn by the presence of Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran, who spoke during a mass demonstration of opponents of Tehran's theocracy at the nearby Theresienwiese. 208 posłów — The CDU/CSU parliamentary group has 208 seats compared to the SPD's 120 Parallel to the events in Stuttgart, the election campaign is gaining momentum in Berlin and other regions. Kai Wegner of the CDU engaged in a sharp dispute with the leader of the post-communist Left party, Elif Eralp, accusing her party of anti-Semitism, which met with a fierce riposte from the opposition. The Stuttgart congress was intended to give the final impetus to Manuel Hagel, the Christian Democratic candidate in Baden-Württemberg, to take power in the state after 15 years of Green Party rule.