Nationwide expansion of the CSU
As a nationwide expansion of the CSU , a potential accession of the Christian Social Union (CSU) beyond Bavaria is discussed again and again throughout Germany . Under the party chairman Franz Josef Strauss , these considerations were referred to as the Fourth Party . Admittedly, the CSU was already the fourth independent party in the Bundestag at that time (alongside CDU , SPD and FDP ). In addition to the Bavarian work at the federal level, however, a nationwide party organization and candidacy should take place in elections in order to address different groups of voters in a more targeted manner with a more liberal CDU and a more conservative CSU.
The Union parties CDU and CSU are organizationally separated, but form a parliamentary group with the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the German Bundestag . This is possible because they do not compete against each other in elections. An expansion of the CSU into the other federal states would probably have the consequence that the CDU would in turn found a regional association in Bavaria. The CDU successfully threatened this when the CSU leadership had already decided to form its own parliamentary group after the 1976 federal election.
The question of separating the CDU and CSU has been raised again since 2015. The background was the different positions of the two parties with regard to asylum and refugee policy.
Kreuther separation decision
prehistory
The CSU chairman Franz Josef Strauss sought an absolute majority of the Union parties against the social-liberal coalition (1969–1982) , not a coalition change of the FDP. After losing the federal election in 1972 , he expressed the idea of a fourth party. This should appeal to conservative voters who found the CDU too liberal. She could also support Strauss in a candidate for chancellor. It remained unclear whether the CSU, in agreement with the CDU, should only put up candidates in certain constituencies in the rest of the country or whether it should set up its own organization in all federal states and constituencies. CDU leader Kohl took this seriously as a threat and warned his party colleagues against the collapse of the Union because the SPD-FDP coalition could then rule permanently and Kohl would have to give up his own candidacy for chancellor.
In the spring of 1975 the CDU federal executive elected its chairman Kohl unanimously as the Union's candidate for chancellor. Strauss, who had supported a candidacy by Karl Carstens and who thought Kohl was weak and incompetent, was presented with a fait accompli. The federal election on October 3, 1976 ended with 48.6 percent for the CDU / CSU, but without a change of government. Despite the defeat, Kohl gave up the office of Prime Minister in Rhineland-Palatinate and moved to Bonn to head the CDU / CSU parliamentary group. There there was a dispute between Kohl and Strauss on October 7th, as the latter complained about the result.
Decision making
The decision of the CSU state group of November 19, 1976 in the then educational center of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Wildbad Kreuth to discontinue the faction community with the CDU in the 8th legislative period of the German Bundestag is called Kreuther's separation decision .
The MP Franz Handlos had suggested that the regional group should form its own parliamentary group. Peter Schmidhuber and Theo Waigel (then chairman of the Junge Union Bayerns ) spoke out against it, Friedrich Zimmermann and Gerold Tandler were in favor, as was Richard Stücklen , who had calculated his chances for the office of President of the Bundestag and had been ignored. Officially, the intention was to get more speaking time in parliament for more effective opposition work. Strauss held back in the debate. Ultimately, 30 out of 49 MPs voted for the separation. Kohl only found out about this later through the media.
Countermeasures by the CDU
Bernhard Vogel , who had already been nominated as the new Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, offered Kohl to stay in Mainz. But Kohl accepted the fight for the unity of the Union. The CDU had already set up a reserve of two million marks for this case. There were already organizational plans for a CDU regional association in Bavaria in order to be able to counter the feared expansion of the CSU. At a CDU meeting on November 22nd, Kohl discussed the next steps: One should try to change the CSU leadership, but already with the threat of a CDU Bavaria. The conservative state heads of Baden-Württemberg and Hesse , Hans Filbinger and Alfred Dregger , kept their distance from Strauss.
Kohl had meanwhile won well-known CSU members for the CDU Bavaria. On November 29th, Kohl reaffirmed the threat to the CDU federal executive board. The federal CDU has already prepared a Bavarian organizational structure, including a fundraising campaign, lists of CDU friends in Bavaria and a magazine “CDU in Bavaria”. She planned to start the founding campaign on December 15, with a poster showing an election campaign photo of Kohl. The founding party conference was to take place in Nuremberg in March 1977 . From September, the regional association would then put up CDU candidates for the Bavarian local elections.
CSU internal reactions
In Bavaria, too, there was resistance to the poorly prepared volte of the CSU leadership. Prominent representatives of the party spoke out against the separation, as did 111 district leaders. They pointed out that the party statutes limit the CSU to Bavaria. Just eight days after the decision, the plan of its own parliamentary group was off the table. But Strauss defiantly gave a speech in front of party friends in a meeting room of the headquarters of the Wienerwald group in Munich, in which he denied his rival Kohl the qualification to be chancellor (so-called Wienerwald speech ).
output
On December 1st, the CDU members of the Bundestag elected Kohl as parliamentary group chairman and on December 7th the members of the parliamentary group's executive committee. A CDU parliamentary group was already assumed, but the CSU was called upon to consider the separation decision at a special party congress in January. On December 12, 1976, the separation decision was finally withdrawn, but the special independence of the CSU was confirmed. On December 13th, Kohl and Strauss were able to announce their agreement that the faction community would be restored.
The disputes ultimately paved the way for Franz Josef Strauss to be candidate for chancellor in the 1980 Bundestag elections , who ran as a joint CDU / CSU candidate for chancellor. He too missed an absolute majority and lost 4.1 percentage points compared to 1976. This strengthened the position of Kohl, who two years later established a coalition with the FDP. Strauss, on the other hand, remained Bavarian Prime Minister.
The myth of Kreuth or the spirit of Kreuth as a symbol for the independence of the CSU was invoked again and again in the following decades. The national group met there regularly for another forty years.
Discussions since 2015
The refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 led to a violent dispute between CSU leader Horst Seehofer and Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). The thought came up again that the CSU could appear outside Bavaria. Seehofer and the CSU advocate a significantly more restrictive attitude towards refugees in order not to leave the field to the alternative for Germany .
Before the 2017 federal election
Horst Seehofer announced in May 2016 that he might run his own CSU election campaign in the 2017 federal election. He himself then wants to be in first place on the state list. Federal Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt also questioned a joint election program of the Union parties.
On May 9, 2016, Peter Issig wrote in Die Welt : “Expansion in the federal government? Highly dangerous for the CSU ”. He could imagine that competing separately would relieve the CDU election campaigners. You could refer to the wide range of the Union. But if it were to be expanded, there would be a considerable risk that the CSU would ultimately lose, despite many votes in Germany. Issig quoted a local CSU politician, according to which an expansion and an appearance of the CDU in Bavaria would tear the party apart. Bundestag member Hans-Peter Uhl warned of the unattractive prospect that the CSU would miss an absolute majority in Bavaria and would then have to negotiate a coalition with the CDU. Like the constitutional lawsuit against asylum policy, the threat of expansion has a purpose, according to Issig, but not as a political act. That is why the CSU top politicians tried to delimit them, but currently expressly refused to extend it.
In the same newspaper Ulli Kulke said on October 23, 2016: A nationwide CSU would be an attractive alternative for moderate AfD voters and many voters from the new right spectrum. As a traditional right-wing party, it is capable of forming a coalition and has an advantage over the AfD. Almost a year later, shortly before the election, Ansgar Graw also called for expansion. The CDU and CSU have lost their credibility as a party for law and order . Therefore, it is worth exploring that the CSU becomes a federal party. "Even if the logical follow-up of the CDU to the south endangers the absolute majority of the Christian Socialists in Bavaria, this would be a smarter move than the ideological repotting of the CDU."
Theo Waigel, the CSU honorary chairman, warned against a separate election campaign of the sister parties. In such an election campaign they would argue much more intensely than with the other parties.
In the Merkel IV cabinet
A disintegration of the Union alliance was discussed again in June 2018, when the dispute over the course on the asylum issue flared up again. The CSU specifically urged that refugees at the German border be rejected if they had already applied for asylum in another EU country . On June 14, a Bundestag session was suspended for four hours; the members of the CDU and CSU met separately on this issue, which observers commented as very unusual. It is generally assumed that the CSU's tougher course is related to the state election in Bavaria in October 2018.
On June 15, an editor of the satirical magazine Titanic succeeded in spreading the deliberate false report via Twitter that the Union alliance had been terminated by Seehofer and that CDU vice-president Volker Bouffier had proposed the preparation of a Bayern CDU. The message was taken from Reuters and a number of other media, as well as from the AfD MP Beatrix von Storch . Moritz Hürtgen from Titanic said he wanted to expose how online journalism works nowadays. The Mercury commented that the hoax had made it clear that "hardly anyone holds a rift between the opposition parties for completely absurd". An unnamed CSU politician complained that they had "maneuvered into a hopeless situation". Another CSU source feared major losses in the state election if the CSU did not prevail on the asylum issue.
The taz called a nationwide CSU a "Wut-Lega-Süd" and pointed out that the CSU only barely exceeded the five percent threshold in the 2017 federal election . A nationwide CSU would find it difficult to represent both the pragmatic center in Bavaria and to play a “nationwide Rumpelstiltskin”.
The Kölnische Rundschau reported on June 23 that CSU regional group leader Dobrindt was already publicly doubting the union. The CDU, CSU and SPD are already preparing for a possible break in the coalition with subsequent new elections. The deadline for the CDU to participate in the Bavarian state elections is August 2nd, but a CDU regional association must first be founded quickly. In addition, this association must set up subdivisions in all seven districts of Bavaria and hold electoral meetings, nominate candidates and collect 2,000 signatures each.
Survey
According to a survey in May 2016, a relative majority of those questioned were in favor of a nationwide expansion of the CSU. 45 percent found this good, 40 percent not good. Above all AfD supporters, but also 49 percent of the Union supporters welcomed the nationwide CSU eligibility.
On June 19, 2018, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that the CDU / CSU only came together to 29 percent on the Sunday question. That is the worst value that has ever been measured by Insa-opinion trend. The SPD followed with 19 percent, the AfD with 16, the Left with 12, the Greens with 11 and the FDP with 8 percent. If the CDU and CSU were to compete separately nationwide, the CDU would be the strongest party with 22 percent and the CSU the second largest with 18 percent. The SPD received 17 percent, the Left 12, the AfD 11, the Greens 10 and the FDP 6 percent.
Reactions from political scientists
Political scientist Jürgen Falter analyzed the difficult situation for the CSU. In the Bavarian election, the party could lose that third of its potential voters who support the CDU position. The remaining two thirds, however, would expect a presentable compromise on the asylum issue from the CSU. Angela Merkel is further weakened by the crisis. You benefit from the fact that the SPD does not want any new elections before 2021. In his assessment, the risk of a rift between the CDU and CSU is high, but neither party really wanted him.
Party researcher Heinrich Oberreuter ( Passau ) has now assessed the CDU as left of center, while the CSU insists on local tradition and cultural identity. Nevertheless, both sides should sit down at the table. Seehofer's threat of nationwide CSU expansion he considered "total nonsense". The CSU would lose its unique selling point as a regional party. If the CDU ran in Bavaria, the CSU would fall from 47 to 30 percent in their own country. Nationwide, the CDU and CSU would lose votes together. In essence, both parties aimed at the same voters.
Web links
- Alf Mintzel: Spirit of Kreuth . In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria
- 30 years separation decision - The CSU and Kreuth , article by Dorothea Hülsmeier on n-tv , November 14, 2006
- CSU exam: The Kreuther ghost has been haunted for 30 years , article by Harry Luck in Focus , January 8, 2007
- CSU leader Franz Josef Strauss on the split in the Bonn Union parliamentary group , interview in Spiegel , November 29, 1976
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, p. 222.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, p. 228.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, p. 248.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, pp. 249/250.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, p. 251.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, pp. 251-254.
- ^ Hans Peter Schwarz: Helmut Kohl. A political biography . DVA, Munich 2012, pp. 254/256.
- ↑ a b Great approval for nationwide elective CSU. In: Welt Online. May 8, 2016, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Expansion in the federal government? Highly dangerous for the CSU. In: world. May 9, 2016, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ With a nationwide CSU, the AfD would shrink. October 23, 2016, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Let the CSU compete nationwide! In: Welt Online. October 16, 2017. Retrieved June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Waigel calls nationwide CSU "catastrophe for the Union". In: Tagesspiegel. May 12, 2017. Retrieved June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Refugee dispute in Union escalates: Is the coalition breaking up in Berlin? June 15, 2018, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ "Seehofer terminates union alliance with CDU" - as the "Titanic" (again) causes confusion. In: Stern.de. June 15, 2018, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Titanic editor fools German media. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk. June 15, 2018, accessed August 21, 2019 .
- ↑ Florian Neumann: "Then we can turn off the light": CSU politicians hope and fear in the asylum dispute. In: Merkur.de. June 16, 2018, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Stefan Reinecke: Is the League South coming now? In: taz. June 16, 2018, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ^ Gregor Mayntz and Eva Quadbeck: Coalitionaries are preparing for a possible break between the CDU and CSU. In: Kölnische Rundschau. June 23, 2018, accessed June 25, 2018 .
- ↑ Stefan Braun and Robert Roßmann: When the CDU comes to Bavaria. In: sueddeutsche.de. June 18, 2018, accessed June 25, 2018 .
- ↑ After separation, CSU would become the second strongest force nationwide. In: FAZ.net . Retrieved June 19, 2018 (2018-06-25).
- ↑ "CSU and CDU do not really want break". In: LR Online. June 15, 2018, accessed June 17, 2018 .
- ↑ Expert: "Nationwide expansion would cost the CSU 15 percent in Bavaria". In: Focus.de. June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 17, 2018 .