In the CDU there is growing discontent over how Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is approaching the planned major reforms. “The new Germany trend is alarming” said Dennis Radtke, chairman of the CDU’s employee wing, in the Sunday edition of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”.
According to an Infratest survey, only 15 percent of citizens are satisfied with the federal government’s work. Radtke stressed that “the geopolitical challenges on one hand and the urgent need for structural reforms on the other are gigantic”. He urged the government to offer “leadership and orientation” in the coming weeks.
Radtke said the current debate gives the impression that workers are expected to bear the brunt of the reforms. Yet he argued that employees are the ones most worried about inflation and a decline in living standards.
“We are fighting to preserve our democracy and the foundation of our prosperity” Radtke added, noting that he also serves in the European Parliament and on the CDU’s federal board. “This struggle cannot be won by asking for overtime and placing unilateral burdens on employees”. He warned that the mood must be different by the state election in Eastern Germany in September, otherwise “political ruin is threatened”.
Because of this, Radtke calls on his party not to ease up. “With minor corrections we will not be able to shoulder mammoth tasks” he said. For short‑term structural relief for workers and businesses, his party must not “sacrifice holy cows” he said.
Issues such as abolishing the exemption‑need review for inheritance and gift tax, and introducing a tonnage tax for shipping companies, should be put on the agenda. In Germany, roughly €400 billion in inheritances and gifts change hands each year, yet only about a quarter of that is taxed, Radtke explained. The exemption‑need review is supposedly designed to preserve businesses, but in practice it protects “vast fortunes from fair tax participation”.
Radtke noted a similarly absurd picture with the tonnage tax. “Instead of taxing actual profits, the system uses flat rates per day and net tonnes” he said. The result can be that “millions of euros in profits are taxed at less than one percent”.