How Germany’s CDU is tacking rightward post-Merkel

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Good morning. The EU plans to ban direct and indirect Russian state funding to political parties, NGOs and media in the EU as part of its latest package of sanctions against Moscow.

Today, our Berlin bureau chief looks at the German Christian Democrats return to old-school conservatism. And our trade correspondent delves into European countries’ diverging stances on China.

Back to the roots

Germany’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) will adopt a new party programme today that marks a return to conservative principles after the centrist Merkel years, writes Guy Chazan.

Context: The CDU is keen to present an alternative to Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals, which has slumped in the polls, and to paint its leader, Friedrich Merz, as a potential chancellor-in-waiting.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Merz said the new programme showed a “willingness to do politics based on our convictions, and not just according to opinion polls”. His old rival Angela Merkel, who squeezed him aside in a power struggle in the early 2000s, was often accused of making policy based on focus groups.

The draft programme is the first to be adopted since 2007 and offers plenty of red meat for conservative voters.

It stipulates that immigrants should sign up to Germany’s Leitkultur, or dominant culture, including things such as “a sense of homeland and belonging, a knowledge of German history and recognition of Israel’s right to exist”.

In several key areas it marks an abrupt change from Merkel-era policies — including on immigration, nuclear power and military service.

Merkel allowed more than 1mn refugees, mostly from the Middle East and north Africa, to enter Germany in 2015-16. Now, the CDU is proposing to send refugees to “safe third countries” to undergo their asylum procedure, echoing the UK’s controversial Rwanda plan.

Merkel also abolished Germany’s military draft; Merz and his allies are proposing an obligatory year of “service to society” for school-leavers, which can include a stint at the armed forces. Meanwhile, many in the party think that only the full reintroduction of conscription can resolve the Bundeswehr’s serious personnel problems.

The former chancellor also decided to phase out nuclear power in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. The new draft CDU programme says that should be reversed.

Merz said most Germans wanted a return to nuclear power. “They know what a mistake we made in 2011 . . . and in 2023, when we shut down the last remaining nuclear power plants,” he said.

“So in our party programme we keep open the option of returning to nuclear power, while also saying there are other developments, such as nuclear fusion, that we should be open to.”

Chart du jour: Comeback

International organisations expect the growth of global trade to more than double this year, after commerce took a hit last year amid higher prices, surging interest rates and sluggish demand.

Ties that bind

While Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Paris yesterday, a conference in Vilnius laid bare the EU’s divisions over how to deal with its economic entanglement with Beijing, writes Andy Bounds.

Context: China and Lithuania faced off in 2021, when the Baltic country allowed Taiwan to open a representation on its territory, prompting Beijing to cut off Lithuanian exports. Vilnius is now lobbying for a tougher approach to China, which remains the EU’s largest trading partner.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, yesterday noted that his country had ceased all exports to China since the blockade, found new markets in Asia and blocked Chinese investment in key sectors.

Countries must pay a “margin for security”, Landsbergis told the conference, which was attended by more than 30 countries’ representatives.

Žygimantas Pavilionis, a senior MP from the ruling party Homeland Union, urged other EU countries to also ditch the bloc’s de-risking strategy. “We need to decouple,” he said.

Eduard Hulicius, deputy foreign minister of the Czech Republic, quipped that Xi was visiting “three small countries: France, Hungary and Serbia. From the perspective of China, even France is a small country.”

That contrasted with the efforts in Paris to assuage trade tensions. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said he would welcome Chinese car factories, despite an EU probe into alleged Chinese subsidies damaging European manufacturers.

Landsbergis did however credit the French with rallying behind Vilnius over China’s bullying, when some in the European Commission dismissed it as a national matter.

“It very much depended on the French decisions . . . And the decision to [support us] was quite quick.”

What to watch today

1. Chinese President Xi Jinping travels to Serbia.

2. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speak at European Economic Congress in Katowice, Poland.

3. EU development ministers meet in Brussels.

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