Merkel says she would now vote for same-sex marriage, reversing her 2017 no

A reversal on the 2017 vote

Former chancellor Angela Merkel, now 72, says she would vote in favour of marriage for same-sex couples. Asked in the podcast Kaffee und Fluchen whether she would vote differently from 2017, she answered yes.

“I would vote for it today, yes.”

In 2017, late in her third term, Merkel lifted the whip for Union lawmakers on the question, which opened the way to a free vote, though she herself voted against. She described the decision as one of conscience for each deputy. Several votes from within her own camp carried the measure, and Germany became one of the last western European countries to give same-sex couples full legal equality in marriage law after decades of campaigning by gay and lesbian Germans. Merkel said she had had many worries back then, pointing to questions around surrogacy and children, and that a free vote in the Bundestag had mattered most to her. She added that she knew many gay and lesbian people who had wanted to marry. Her autobiography Freiheit had already looked critically at her decision.

Young voters and the promise of prosperity

Merkel also addressed why an above-average share of young voters choose the AfD or the Linke. In her view, young people are right to ask whether the promise of prosperity still holds for them, and she believes it does in principle, though its meaning has shifted. She said security, climate protection and biodiversity now belong to that promise, and that justice is a central question for many young people. She rejected the AfD's answer, which in her view rests on exclusion and suggests one group gains when others receive less. The Linke's answer of simply redistributing everything was not the solution either.

“Prosperity may not only be gross domestic product per capita, but also security, climate protection and biodiversity.”

Mainstream parties, she argued, need to communicate far better on digital media, since their reach is too limited and young people keep running into content from the extremes.

“The parties of the centre must talk about their visions for the promise of prosperity and define it.”

The Linke, housing and Friedrich Merz

Merkel was clear on the Linke, which also draws above-average support from young voters. Asked whether the CDU could work with the Berlin Linke given antisemitism accusations against the party, she pointed to the CDU's general incompatibility resolution and said she would not do it. On housing, she said the core issue is affordability. Higher standards, for example for thermal insulation, had made building more expensive over the years and need to be revisited, while calls to socialise housing stock did not strike her as expedient. Asked about weak polling for Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), she said a chancellor needs an unconditional will to power. Whether the polls were justified was a question she had never asked herself, she said, and the task is to build bridges, which the CDU must do as a whole.