Denis Radtke, the leader of the CDU’s employee wing, sharply criticized how his own party handles discussions about reforms in the social‑security system. “When you create a campfire atmosphere rhetorically for a handpicked group of business‑association officials while at the same time kicking half the country in the head, you haven’t solved any problem-on the contrary, you’re only worsening the mood” he told the “Handelsblatt” on Tuesday.
He asked what the party hopes to achieve with its communication strategy. “Clearly there are people who are worried about their work‑life balance and there are folks who are simply making excuses, but that’s not the majority” Radtke warned.
Worker representatives have long complained about the dominance of the economic wing of the party, led by federal chairman Friedrich Merz and secretary‑general Carsten Linnemann. “If people get the impression that we have no rough idea of the everyday lives of millions of people in our country, we will never regain their trust-if anything, we will lose it” he added.
Radtke argued that the party must raise incentives and improve the overall framework conditions rather than pointing a finger at entire sections of the population.