Letter to Merz
CDU MP wants to end cooperation ban with AfD
The debate about the firewall is simmering in the CDU. In a letter to Chancellor and party leader Friedrich Merz, a CDU man says: Separate yes, exclude no.
The CDU wants to end the discussion about demarcation from the AfD as quickly as possible. But it continues to smolder, especially in the East. When Friedrich Merz was preparing for his party’s presidential retreat at the weekend, state parliament member Alexander Räuscher from Saxony-Anhalt decided to write a letter to his party leader.
In his letter, Räuscher calls for a quick end to the CDU’s official ban on cooperation with the party and the Left. But he doesn’t want to see this as an invitation to cooperate.
No more firewalls against the AfD and the Left
Räuscher writes in the letter that… star present: “The incompatibility decision, framed as a firewall by our opponents, is wrong and must be repealed. As quickly as possible.” Räuscher emphasized that he was against working with “both extremist parties.” The MP writes that it annoys him that he has to emphasize this so explicitly.
Räuscher argues against the cooperation ban with three points: The CDU was “reprimanded” by its political opponents on the left of the center, the media were “delighted to accept this reprimand” and now the AfD in particular is celebrating the “unspeakable decision.”
Räuscher’s Harz district association had already made a name for itself in the spring after the federal election. The association was the first section of the CDU nationwide to demand a repeal of the party conference’s resolution banning cooperation with the AfD and the Left Party. Räuscher says so star When asked about his letter: “For me it’s about the principle: bans on cooperation do not belong in a democracy. Our motto must be: differentiate, but not exclude.”
Räuscher is one of a handful of MPs in the state parliamentary group in Magdeburg who have long wanted an end to the firewall. The 54-year-old made a name for himself in the past because he wanted the Greens to be monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Räuscher’s position is by no means a majority opinion, but it is not an isolated case in the East. The Thuringian CDU MP Martin Henkel made similar comments on his Facebook channel at the weekend: “No people can be permanently separated by walls – neither made of concrete nor ideology!” writes the CDU man. “The so-called firewall only serves to maintain power for the SPD, the Greens and the Left.” There are clear center-right majorities – in the federal government as well as in the states. These majorities are democratically elected. Excluding “the strongest group of voters” is undemocratic.
Friedrich Merz, on the other hand, tried to refute this accusation on Monday: “The ‘outstretched hand’ that the AfD keeps trying to do is actually a hand that wants to destroy us,” said the CDU party leader. He criticized the “false narrative” that the CDU could achieve anything with the AfD. “It’s not just details that separate us, it’s fundamental political beliefs that separate us.”
However, Merz no longer wants to use the term firewall, which he himself once introduced into the party. He said that too on Monday. The Saxony-Anhalt MP Räuscher thinks this is a good first step.
“In politics, in democracy and diplomacy, so-called firewalls are wrong and exclude,” says the MP. You always have to talk to your opponents.
Source: Stern
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