Berlin, October 12th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Germany’s Christian Democrats are trying to find a way out of what many in the party describe as an existential crisis. The CDU leadership just concluded two days of talks on the fallout from the September state elections, which brought the party a series of crushing losses. Chancellor and party chair Friedrich Merz and Secretary General Franziska Hoppermann were set to present the results afterwards.
On Sunday, the party’s executive committee discussed a paper with concrete steps meant to bring the CDU closer to “the reality of people’s lives,” as Hoppermann put it at the start of the retreat, according to German-language dailies. The meeting was also about whether Merz, whose position has been badly weakened, can stabilize himself again.
Support for the chancellor came on Sunday evening from Markus Söder, the leader of the Bavarian sister party CSU. “Friedrich Merz remains chancellor”, the Bavarian state premier said on the ARD talk show “Miosga”. Asked about Merz’s dismal approval ratings, Söder answered, “I appreciate him, I respect him, and I find this very unfair”.
Votes and Credibility
Earlier, Gordon Schnieder, the minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate, had warned his party against continuing the debate over personnel. In his view, such quarrels cost the party both votes and credibility. He urged the CDU to focus on substance and proposed lowering the electricity tax for everyone to ease the burden of high energy prices. Thuringia’s Minister-President Mario Voigt had also called for measures to reduce the cost of living.
The leaders of the Union’s state parliamentary groups weighed in as well after meeting in Berlin on Sunday. “People expect a change in policy that they can feel in their everyday lives”, said their chairman, Sebastian Lechner of Lower Saxony. According to him, the group leaders want noticeably lower social security contributions. Benefits unrelated to insurance should be paid for with tax money, and the planned income tax reform should be dropped to make that possible. They also called for lower energy costs, relief for municipalities, and tougher action against the abuse of social benefits.
The CDU was voted out of a state parliament for the first time on September 20th, when it failed to clear the threshold in Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania. The same evening in Berlin, the Left Party pushed the CDU out of first place. “The Left”Die Linke”, which harbors antisemites, is now trying to form a government with the SPD and the Greens. Two weeks earlier in Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU had lost almost 20 percentage points. In December, Ulrich Siegmund of the extremist right-wing AfD will run there for the office of Minister President (governor).
Unprecedented Lows
The Union has also fallen to unprecedented lows nationally. Seventeen months after the black-red federal government was sworn in, several polls put it below 20 percent. It had received 28.5 percent in the federal election in early 2025. Only six years ago, polls still showed the Union at close to 40 percent.
The retreat also dealt with whether the government will stay the course on its reform agenda, including pensions, long-term care, and health care. Beyond that, the party faces fundamental questions: Does the CDU need to become more conservative to win back voters, or should it move in the opposite direction? And what happens to its firewall against the AfD and “Die Linke”?