There has often been friction between the CSU and Angela Merkel. Now, on her 70th birthday, Bavaria’s Prime Minister is sounding a completely different tone. And then there are the “Confucius SMS”.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder acknowledged former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s great life’s work on her 70th birthday, despite the dispute over migration policy. “Congratulations on your 70th birthday – on a great life’s work to the most important living political personality in Germany,” Söder told the DPA news agency on Merkel’s birthday this Wednesday.
During the migration crisis in 2015/2016, there was a deep rift between Merkel and the then CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer.
The CSU has “not always made it easy” for Angela Merkel
The CSU and Merkel had a volatile relationship at the beginning – “that was also true for me,” Söder admitted. There were major differences, especially in migration policy. “But during the Corona pandemic, everything changed for me,” said Söder, who succeeded Seehofer as CSU chairman and minister president.
He had “the utmost respect for how Angela Merkel protected our country,” Söder explained. “During that time, a strong relationship of trust developed, we could rely on each other.” He added: “And I learned a lot from her. We wrote to each other often back then,” recalls the Bavarian Prime Minister. “My questions were often answered with real ‘Confucius SMS’, such as: There is strength in calmness.” The later invitation to Lake Chiemsee in mid-July 2020 “was also a thank you and a way of making up for the fact that we as the CSU did not always make it easy for her.”
Source: Stern
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