Klingbeil: CDU under Merz like a "horde of little boys"
The CDU is becoming more riotous, is brashly pursuing opposition politics and is not sparing with its criticism of the coalition government. SPD leader Klingbeil sees the behavior of party leader Merz as a kind of self-therapy and a reappraisal of Merkel's policies in recent years.
SPD leader Lars Klingbeil has sharply criticized the CDU and its party leader Friedrich Merz. "In recent years, I have always perceived the CDU as a constructive party that takes its democratic responsibility seriously. Under Friedrich Merz, however, the CDU is acting like a bunch of little boys who are happy that Angela Merkel is gone and that they can finally do what they always wanted to do but never had the power or the courage to do," Klingbeil told t-online.
"That's a riot mentality," added the SPD leader, emphasizing: "I have a different perception of the CDU minister presidents who bear responsibility in their states." Klingbeil went on to say that he recognized a kind of "longing for the day before yesterday" in the draft of the CDU's basic programme, which the CDU presented on Monday: "I believe that the current CDU leadership is primarily treating itself and working through its relationship with Angela Merkel."
Klingbeil particularly criticized the sentence "Muslims who share our values belong to Germany". This is a rhetorical exclusion of an entire population group. "This kind of prejudice against people would not have existed in the Merkel-CDU. Merz is making an ideological U-turn here," said the SPD politician. 2023 was a year with "an incredible number of crises", Klingbeil summed up. Many things were not foreseeable. "Nevertheless, I would say that in the end we managed to react sensibly to these crises," said the SPD leader.
However, he also admitted that there had been disputes within the coalition government "that did not go optimally". "These are things that need to go better in the government next year." Then the polls for the traffic light government would also improve again.
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Despite Klingbeil's criticism of the CDU under Friedrich Merz, Angela Merkel's successor within the party, the SPD and CDU still need to find common ground in the coalition government. This is a challenging task given Klingbeil's perception of the CDU as acting "like a bunch of little boys" under Merz's leadership.
In response to the CDU's critical stance and the controversial sentence from their basic program, Klingbeil, representing the SPD, emphasized the importance of inclusivity and rejected the ideological U-turn made by the CDU under Merz's leadership.
Source: www.ntv.de
