Friedrich Merz on marital rape: “It would be different today”

Friedrich Merz has changed his mind about reforming the issue of marital rape. “I would vote differently today,” the Union candidate for chancellor told the newspapers of the Neue Berliner Editorial Society as well as the “Stuttgarter Zeitung” and the “Stuttgarter Nachrichten”. He was referring to his much-criticized decision to vote against a bill in 1997 that would add marital rape to the criminal code.

Marital rape has always been punishable as coercion and serious bodily harm, said Merz. The CDU politician never voted against criminalizing marital rape, but rather for an objection clause that would have given victims the opportunity to prevent prosecution. “I voted for such a solution over 25 years ago. Around half of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group saw it the same way I did. Others saw it differently – and in retrospect they were right.”

On the subject of the debt brake, Merz repeated his recently expressed willingness to talk about reforms, at least at the state level. “But for me, such a consideration comes last in the list of priorities. We support the debt brake,” Merz told the newspapers.

The CDU chairman wants to enter the Bundestag for Hochsauerland in the new elections on February 23rd. The CDU there will vote on his direct candidacy on Saturday.

Watch the video above: After Olaf Scholz’s government statement, Friedrich Merz verbally attacks the Chancellor: Scholz would therefore “simulate a majority” that he no longer has.