In the Bundestag, CDU leader Friedrich Merz sharply criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but offered to solve “the pressing problems of our country” together. Just five months ago it sounded completely different.
Five months after his rejection of talks with the traffic light, Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz offered the federal government joint action against Islamism. “I offer you that we take this path together with the democratic factions in our house and that we try together to solve the pressing problems of our country,” said Merz in the debate on the Chancellor’s government declaration in the Bundestag. The Union is ready to compromise.
In January, Merz had categorically rejected cooperation with the traffic light coalition in the Bundestag, thereby slamming the door on talks: “Please spare yourself and us your calls for cooperation in the future,” he said at the time. The CDU and CSU no longer have anything to discuss with the traffic light: “If you button the bottom of your jacket incorrectly, then we won't discuss with you how big the button in the last hole should be.”
Despite his offer to talk, Merz did not skimp on criticism of the traffic lights. He thanked Chancellor Olaf Scholz for “finding the right words” about the murder of the police officer in Mannheim. But he accused him of not yet commenting on the case of the President of the Technical University of Berlin, Geraldine Rauch. The mathematician had liked anti-Semitic X-posts. The TU's Academic Senate announced on Wednesday evening that Rauch had 24 hours to decide whether she wanted to resign.
Scholz should throw smoke out of the Future Council
Merz said that the TU President must be removed from the Chancellery's Future Council. If there is agreement about rejecting anti-Semitism, then Rauch should not remain a member of the Future Council. He assumes that Scholz will draw the conclusions from the incidents involving the university president “by the weekend at the latest.”
Merz also struck an unforgiving tone with regard to the deportations to Afghanistan that Scholz had promised. He also sharply criticized the citizenship law, which is due to come into force on June 27th. “Could we agree that you at least postpone the date of entry into force of this law again so that, given the situation, we can discuss with you again how we can come to a sensible citizenship law that does not open the gate further for people that actually have no place in our country?”
Klingbeil accepts the offer to talk
With regard to Ukraine, Merz accused the Chancellor of “hesitancy” and “fearfulness” as well as a “policy of incorrect assessments of the situation.” Scholz said that a delivery of the Marder armored personnel carrier would trigger “a terrible escalation.” Then the martens were delivered anyway. Merz said that so far there has only been a terrible escalation in this war for the people in Ukraine. Scholz always comes too late with his decisions. One day the Chancellor will also agree to deliver the Taurus cruise missile, “but then it will be too late again for the thousands of people and soldiers in Ukraine who have lost their lives in the meantime.”
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil made it clear in the debate that at least his party wanted to accept the CDU chairman's offer to talk. But he also attacked the Union: The chairman of the European People's Party (EPP), the CSU politician Manfred Weber, said that in the European Parliament he would prefer to work “with the right-wing extremists in Italy” than with the Social Democrats and Greens. “Today would have been a good time to explain whether your words, Mr. Merz, apply, that there is no cooperation with the right-wing extremists and right-wing populists, or whether the path of Ms. von der Leyen or Manfred Weber applies, that one is ready to use those majorities to look for the European elections.”
This has never happened before:
Exclusive and at prime time The leaders of the six major German parties discuss the results of the European and local elections.
- Friedrich Merz
- Lars Klingbeil
- Omid Nouripour
- Christian Lindner
- Alice Weidel
- Sahra Wagenknecht
This unique round is moderated by ntv politics boss Nikolaus Blome.
Turn on: ntv, Sunday, June 9th, 8:15 p.m
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also did not rule out collaboration with the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The SPD, in turn, has conditioned support for von der Leyen's second term in office on the condition that she renounces “support for the enemies of democracy and the rule of law,” as a party paper states.
