The criticism expressed for days is apparently having an effect: Armin Laschet, unsuccessful candidate for chancellor of the German Union parties CDU and CSU, first indicated his retreat in a parliamentary group meeting in the late afternoon. As several German media reported unanimously, Laschet said that a “renewed personnel battle” should be prevented.
In addition, the 60-year-old, who is facing a political end, announced a party congress with a new line-up. “If it goes better with other people, then gladly,” he said, according to a report in the “Bild” newspaper. It fits in with the fact that the CDU, which has been Chancellor Angela Merkel for 16 years in Berlin, has booked the exhibition hall in the Saxon capital of Dresden for December 6th to 13th.
Laschet’s statements mean that he will not return even if the negotiations of a traffic light coalition made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP fail. As chancellor of a possible “Jamaica” coalition, a new one would then come into play. Maybe that would also be the hour of CSU boss Markus Söder. Bavaria’s Prime Minister lost to Laschet in the fight for the candidacy for chancellor in the spring.
The SPD, Greens and FDP met yesterday for the first time for a three-way discussion. “We don’t want to talk about each other. We want to talk to each other,” said SPD co-leader Norbert Walter-Borjans when he arrived at the CityCube in Berlin. “I have a good feeling that we have a common conviction that we want to move the country forward.”
Green co-leader Robert Habeck named climate protection as the “red line” of his party in the traffic light talks. “If this government does not manage to get Germany onto the climate protection path from Paris, then it has missed its historical task.”
