CSU chief Söder unveils ten-point plan to restore unity after party infighting and poll weakness
Bavarian premier Markus Söder announced a reform package on 15 June 2026 after weeks of internal criticism, including an open challenge from a senior vice-chair, aiming to “take the party along, motivate it and organise it better.”
After the bruising council elections
CSU leader and Bavarian minister-president Markus Söder presented his ten-point programme in Munich following a party executive meeting. He acknowledged the “wounds” from recent local elections and the discontent that has simmered in the party since his re‑election as chairman last December with a disappointing 83.6 percent. The plan is intended to close ranks and lift morale.
Disputes harm the party and democracy. I hope for new unity.
Weber’s Whitsun letter and the internal flare‑up
The immediate trigger for the turbulence was a five‑page letter by CSU vice‑chairman and European politician Manfred Weber during the Whitsun holiday. In it Weber called for a change of course – widely read as a direct attack on Söder’s style and direction. Weber demanded a “powerful narrative” about where Bavaria and Germany should be headed and insisted that a sense of common purpose would be won “neither with headlines nor with click numbers, only with creativity, courage and ideas.”
CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann described the letter as an “irritation” in the executive meeting. Söder, however, did not mention Weber by name during his press conference and referred to him only as “the colleague” or “someone”. He also stressed that the ideas for the ten points had been in development before the letter arrived.
The ten points at a glance
The package includes a revival of the party’s programme and principles commission, a foreign‑policy congress in the second half of the year on defence and Europe, a high‑tech forum, and an executive retreat after the autumn state elections conceived as a “think‑tank” session. The Hanns‑Seidel Foundation is to be upgraded into a “bridge between science and politics, a think‑tank,” according to its designated head, parliamentary group leader Klaus Holetschek. Söder also wants to boost the CSU’s social‑media presence: “We want to upgrade the party, officials and associations more strongly on social media.”
Leadership is the answer. Not musing but governing is what matters. Parties that just search end up looking helpless.
The outside pressure and the AfD’s strength
Söder broadened the frame, saying that established parties across the spectrum – CDU, SPD, FDP – were going through a “difficult time for all democrats” and were unsettled by the AfD’s strength in polls. “Many are discussing, everyone is searching for their course in these difficult times. It used to be easier, that may well be. But complaining is not an option. We have to show courage, conceptually as well as substantively,” he said. In Berlin the CSU is the smallest coalition partner, which Söder underlined to make the case that internal unity is especially critical.
