Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) has called on coalition partner SPD to act more effectively against the loss of parts of its voter base to the AfD. “The SPD is currently in the process of losing a significant share of its voters to this party,” Merz said on Saturday at the annual congress of the Junge Union in Rust, Baden-Württemberg. This development, he said, carried “a message” for the SPD: “The task of pushing back this party is not a task directed at us alone.”
Merz pointed to the recent local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the AfD made notable gains in former SPD strongholds such as the Ruhr region. The SPD, he argued, must closely examine which of its own candidates performed well against the trend, specifically those SPD candidates “who speak clearly on issues of migration policy, crime prevention, integration, economic policy, [and] social policy,” Merz said.
Merz acknowledged that the CDU had also “unfortunately” lost voters to the AfD. He reaffirmed: “There will be no cooperation with those who call themselves Alternative for Germany within the Union.”
Chancellor added that he considers the term Brandmauer (“firewall”), often used to describe the divide between the Union and the AfD, to be inadequate. “Forget this word,” Merz told Junge Union delegates. Regarding the AfD, he said: “There are worlds between us. We have nothing in common with them.”
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