At the party conference of the southwest CDU, the federal chairman sends his regards to the Greens. The Greens are meeting in Bonn at the same time – and are infuriating the conservatives with their nuclear resolution.
Friedrich Merz, the CDU’s federal chairman, has sharply criticized the Green Party’s decision at its party conference in Bonn to operate only the two southern German nuclear power plants in so-called stretch mode until the beginning of 2023: “The whole world and our European neighbors are irritated by this energy policy. We must not allow ourselves to be held ideologically hostage by the Green Party, which is blocking a sensible path just so that the founding myth of this party survives its party conference.”
Unlike the Greens, the CDU is calling for the power plant in Lingen, Lower Saxony, to remain online in addition to the Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 nuclear power plants, primarily to limit electricity prices and avoid supply bottlenecks in the winter months, and for all three nuclear power plants to operate until the end of winter in 2024. “Geothermal energy, biomass, wind and solar energy – all of that has to be on the table, and in the end also the three power plants we still have in Germany. They must remain on the grid,” Merz said at the state party conference of the Baden-Württemberg CDU in Villingen-Schwenningen.
At the party conference, the 306 delegates also discussed an initiative motion on energy policy. It states: “In order to avert the threat of a further emergency in the energy crisis, we oppose the shutdown of the three nuclear power plants 220 Neckarwestheim 2, Isar 2 and Emsland, which are currently still in operation, at the end of the year.” The motion does not discuss whether new, additional fuel elements should be procured for this purpose. It only says that the “prerequisites” for continued operation should be created.
Strobl: The Greens are not pragmatic
Thomas Strobl, the state chairman of Baden-Württemberg, said, “The Greens’ ideological fight against the temporary continued operation of nuclear power plants is neither sensible nor pragmatic.” Mathematically, the output of Neckarwestheim 2 can supply half of all households in Baden-Württemberg with electricity.
At the party conference, Merz called on Chancellor’s Office Minister Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD) to distance himself from a questionable Nazi comparison: “What’s going on in this man’s head to draw such a comparison.” He called on the minister not to talk such “nonsense.” Schmidt had spoken at an event Thursday about the German government’s reluctance to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks.
Schmidt had called demands by politicians to finally deliver the tanks the “V-2 syndrome of the Germans.” The V2 was a missile system that dictator Adolf Hitler used during World War II to launch retaliatory attacks against Great Britain and turn the tide of the war in favor of the German Wehrmacht.
“We are opening up to new thoughts”
Merz gave a routine speech to motivate the party base. In the Baden-Württemberg state party, Merz has traditionally had a particularly large number of supporters for his candidacy for the CDU federal chairmanship. Some party members, who had expected Merz to take a much more conservative course, were disappointed. Overall, acceptance of the federal chairman is high – in Villingen-Schwenningen, delegates acknowledged Merz’s speech with minutes of applause.
Merz said his goal was to complete the inner-party renewal process in the next few years and to resume government responsibility in the federal government in 2025. He called on his party to be more self-confident: “We’ve proven we can do the future, we wouldn’t have German unity, self-confidence is the order of the day.” The Union’s economic expertise, he said, had been instrumental in rebuilding Germany after the two world wars. “Yes, we are conservative, we defend the foundations of our society, but we also open ourselves to new thoughts and developments.”
A number of amendments to the articles of association were also put to the vote at the state party conference. With a broad majority, the party congress voted in favor of adopting the women’s quota and for party reform. A central component of the party reform is the introduction of new formats for recruiting members, including online, family and trial memberships. There had previously been a lot of criticism in the state association about the introduction of the women’s quota.
Source of the news: https://www.faz.net
