Friedrich Merz was re‑elected as the chairman of the CDU at the federal party conference in Stuttgart. According to the conference leadership, he received 91.2 % affirmative votes on the Friday evening poll. In his last election in 2024 he had 89.8 % and in his first election in January 2022-an online conference that followed a members’ survey-he secured 94.6 %. In CDU chairman elections, abstentions are treated as blank votes, essentially ignored, so only 14 of the 977 ballots cast were abstentions. The vote had to be conducted on paper because of technical difficulties that made the originally planned digital process impossible.
Merz delivered a broad, rather conventional address at noon, offering little new policy but a fair amount of self‑criticism. Foreign policy dominated the discussion. He recalled the Munich Security Conference, underscoring the importance of the trans‑Atlantic alliance while calling for greater independence. “Americans should remain our friends, but the United States is losing the incentive to act as a reliable cue‑maker” he said, noting that parties must adapt to this new reality.
On the Ukraine war Merz warned again against appeasement: “Those who today follow naive pacifism are paving the way for the wars of tomorrow”. He referenced the Greenland dispute to illustrate that Europe can succeed when it stays united.
He outlined what he believes the party now needs: investment in defence so that Germany can “not be blackmailed” and a rekindling of Germany’s and Europe’s economic strength. This links to domestic politics, where he acknowledged that the party has made overly ambitious promises in the past. “Perhaps we did not make clear quickly enough after the change of government that this massive reform effort cannot be achieved overnight” Merz admitted. He called for continued courage and the need for “someone on the bridge to keep the engine moving”.