Mario Czaja: How dangerous does this man become for Friedrich Merz?

He was once his hope. Now he could become the greatest danger for Friedrich Merz: Mario Czaja, 49, outgoing member of the Bundestag for the Berlin constituency Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

Czaja is one of the 197 MPs of the CDU and CSU in the Bundestag, which together with the other factions coordinate on Tuesday about the special funds planned by the SPD and Union of 500 billion euros and the debt brake exception for defense. Because this is only possible by changing the Basic Law, a two -thirds majority is required. Union, the SPD and the Greens, who negotiated the package after hard negotiations and some concessions, have 520 votes.

That is 31 more than necessary. If you calculate seasonal disease failures and other privately related absences, this is not very much. For Merz, it is twice important that he has closed his party friends in the name of the name: on the one hand purely arithmetically, on the other hand, because he also needs the unity as a signal for the coalition negotiations with the SPD.

But Mario Czaja refuses to do so. On Sunday he told “The Pioneer” that he had informed the faction that he would not vote for the debt compromise. This is “not generational, and the reasons that are used for it are not honest”.

On Monday morning, Czaja added again on the short message service X. And referred to a CDU coryphae, ex-finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who died in December 2023. “He warned of financial bladder formation: higher debts = growing interest burden = higher inflation = pickpocket of little people. Anyone who represents low earners and the middle class has to go to such new debt,” writes Czaja and continues: “New money not only hides the structure problems, but tightens them in the end.”

Czaja is the first Union MP to face Merz’s plans. This also makes it so dangerous for the parliamentary group leader. Because in the faction, quite a few look at the project of gigantic new debt with abdominal pain. Especially since Merz had repeatedly promised to hold on to the debt brake before the election.

However, none of the dissatisfied people had dared to do public resistance. The Brandenburg MP Jens Koeppen had announced that they would not appear to be vote. Others should also struggle, for example the economic politician Klaus-Peter Willsch. The extensive concessions to the Greens encounter significant criticism in the faction. By determining Czaja, the worry in the Merz camp, critical parliamentary group colleagues could now feel encouraged to also vote against the black and red plans when coordinating.

On the other hand: only a few in the Union believe that it is really primary concerns that prompted Czaja to take his step. But rather vengeance and offended vanity. Czaja has nothing to lose: he lost his direct mandate in the Bundestag election and was not secured through the state list.

His relationship with Merz had started well. Before his election as CDU leader, he had already become aware of the East Berlin in December 2021 because Czaja had won a direct mandate in the Bundestag election of the same year in the Left stronghold Marzahn-Hellersdorf.

An East German, still young compared to the party age average, with long political experience and liberal beliefs: Merz appeared a good combination for his reign at the head of the CDU. And so Czaja was elected Secretary General in January 2022.

But just a year and a half later, in July 2023, Merz fired the youngster again. Carsten Linnemann, who is now considered to be set for a post in the future cabinet.

The decision was surprisingly public, internally there had been dissatisfaction with the work of the Secretary General. He hadn’t been able to set accents, remained colorless. He was not very popular in the party headquarters because of his appearance described as “arrogant”.

Conversely, former employees of Merz report that he placed little value on mutually mutually agreed. Now it could take revenge for him to have left such “burned earth” in Czaja.

Perhaps Friedrich Merz should have remembered Angela Merkel’s defeat. In September 2018, her confidant Volker Kauder was voted out as a long -time parliamentary group leader. Financial expert Ralph Brinkhaus took the lead at the time. This had written down each deputy individually in advance. Merkel, on the other hand, had rely on the fact that her wish to keep Kauder as parliamentary group leader would lead to the desired result of the vote, quasi “par ordre de mom”, as was blasphemed in the parliamentary group. An error.

By Tuesday, Merz still has the chance to convince the MPs of his project in a personal conversation. Or he trusts that there is still enough chancellor election association in the Union to make Czaja an individual case.