Roland Koch (CDU) has called on Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and the SPD leaders Lars Klingbeil and Bärbel Bas to be ready to gamble their own political futures on reforms. In a guest column for the Wednesday edition of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”, the former Hessian prime minister argues that rescuing the political centre is a true leadership challenge.
Before his re‑election as party chair, Merz reportedly spoke bluntly about the limits of pain and how to overcome them. Koch notes that beyond this specific mandate, it is the job of leaders to risk their own standing so that supporters stick by them even when the road gets steep. The party‑ and government‑heads were elected for precisely this purpose, and they must be judged by their capacity to make unpopular, painful course corrections that can still win majority support during crises. This requires a willingness to accept deep poll wounds until the first tangible successes appear.
According to Koch, Germany’s radicalisation can only be broken with a new promise of prosperity. The Union and SPD chiefs must therefore work privately to craft a package that stretches both parties to the outermost pain threshold without tearing them apart. They need to “jump far beyond their own shadows” to save the democratic centre, preserve prosperity and maintain social peace. Discussions should cover working‑time law, co‑determination in emerging technologies, personal responsibility within social systems, the trade‑off of cherished subsidies, tax reform, and a fair burden on the highest private incomes.