Friedrich Mertz, the “Donald Trump of Germany”, as his critics and several German media call him, will be the new leader of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), as he won the vote of 62.1%. in a process that is being conducted for the first time in the history of the CDU. Officially, the election of the new President must be ratified by the Party Congress in January.
Mr. Mertz, in his third attempt to take over the leadership of the CDU – in 2018 he had lost to Annegret Krab-Karenbauer and last January to ‘Armin Lasset-, secured the absolute majority already in the first round of voting, prevailing the former head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federal Parliament Norbert Retgen (25.8%) and the former Chancellor Helge Brown (12.1%). The two candidates have already congratulated the winner of the process and expressed their support.
The question now facing the opposition party is whether the new leader will also want to claim the strong parliamentary position of the leader of the Christian Union (CDU / CSU), which is currently held by Ralph Brinkhaus, who has not expressed a disposition. to retreat.
Friedrich Mertz, a lawyer and former executive of multinational corporations, had been out of politics since 2002, when he was defeated in the party by Angela Merkel. He is considered a true conservative politician, while describing himself as a “convinced Europeanist and Atlanticist”.
The 68-year-old has criticized the ECB’s quantitative easing policy in order to throw money into the European economy.
Regarding the Greek debt crisis, Mertz had adopted the line of his political ally, former Finance Minister Wolfgang Schieble. Mertz said that in 2015 a unanimous decision was taken by the Eurozone finance ministers not to support Greece financially anymore, a decision which was overturned by the heads of state and government. “I thought that decision was right then,” Mertz was quoted as saying by Dow Jones newswires. “In the event of a recurrence, I would side with the finance ministers instead of the heads of state and government,” he said.
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