Schwetzingen may represent a turning point for Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The city of 22,000, near Heidelberg, has been selected as the site of a quiet insurrection - a prearranged revolution, so to say. On March 25, members of the party's right wing will seek to end what they see as a shift to the left in the CDU. Their organizational platform: "Liberal-Conservative Awakening in the Union," is designed to unite Merkel critics around the country. [...]
It was then, in Königswinter, near Bonn, that 50 representatives from five federal states drafted a 30-point position paper. Among their demands: Germany must be able to better defend itself. And: Financially undisciplined eurozone countries must face the threat of expulsion from the currency union. The paper also called for a limit on the number of refugees allowed to enter the country, and for more control over German and EU borders. Such criticisms had been articulated before. Grumbling within the CDU began back in the summer of 2015, when Chancellor Merkel first opened the country's borders to refugees on a massive scale. [...]
The CDU's right-wing members feel that law and order policies must once again be the essential core of the party. That ignores the fact that the CDU became stronger and more popular under the centrist policies of its then-leader, Helmut Kohl. The former chancellor was seen as a modernizer that brought the party up to date with the world around it. Angela Merkel has continued along that path. Along the way she jettisoned party traditions such as compulsory military service and even abandoned nuclear power - long celebrated as the energy source of the future by the CDU. She gained a lot of ground for the party among urban voters with such moves. Now there is even wide support for same-sex marriage within the CDU.
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