Tri braids are something very complicated. Three siblings, three close friends or girlfriends, three responsible persons at one level in an organization: Often it goes two against one, in changing combinations, things get really difficult.
For the three CDU politicians Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Angela Merkel and Friedrich Merz, the constellation is a bit different: they are not related, a friendship unites only two of them, their functions are very different. But it's still a complicated three-way mess in which they are stuck.
To make it short: Merkel appreciates the now called by all AKK Kramp-Karrenbauer, but can not with Merz - which is the other way around the same way, AKK and Merz in turn have met after SPIEGEL information a kind of arrangement.
Why it pays to think while Brexit threatens to blow up the EU, the US President confuses the world and in the near future will probably be a comedian as head of state? Because the whole thing is crucial to how it goes with the CDU and thus probably the German government.
So again in order:
There is Chancellor Angela Merkel. The head of government is so keen on Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, politically and personally, that she, as CDU chairman, surprisingly made the former Saarland prime minister a secretary-general. This was understood in the spring of 2018 as a pointer to the successor to the party leadership - and that's exactly what it meant. But then, when Merkel announced her departure in October last year as head of the CDU, suddenly person number three came on the scene: Friedrich Merz.
This, from 2000 to 2002 head of the Union parliamentary group and since 2009 disappeared from active politics, scented the chance of great comeback - and just as the successor of the person who had ousted him at that time: Merkel moved instead of his at the top of the Fraction. At the Hamburg Party Congress last December, he lost in the run-off, however, just against Kramp-Karrenbauer (the third candidate, Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn, was retired in the first round).
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Merz departed prematurely from the party congress, he has not disappeared politically: His ambition to become something again, continues. Some even believe that Merz still hopes for the chancellorship. Anyway, he wants a ministerial office - as fast as possible. Merz turns 64 in autumn.
And now it's getting tricky: as long as Merkel is chancellor, that will not happen. Kramp-Karrenbauer, in turn, could well imagine, according to SPIEGEL information, a minister Merz, but for that she has to become head of government herself. For this reason, it is unlikely that AKK will increase the pressure on Merkel to clear the Chancellery quickly.
Merkel will not just resign
First, because of the close relationship between the two. On the other hand, Kramp-Karrenbauer knows about the political and constitutional hurdles, which are magnified by the official understanding of Merkel: This Chancellor will not resign without a weighty cause and thus open the way for new elections, alternatively Kramp-Karrenbauer could then try in the Bundestag to be elected Chancellor. And so there is some evidence that Merkel will continue to govern until the end of the 2021 legislature.
However, this brings AKK but a bit in the terminal. Merz may be able to curb his ambition in public, as on Friday evening at the joint appearance in Eslohe - but the Merz fans show less restraint.
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First meeting of AKK and Merz: "Esloher Hedgehog" and VeltinsThe campaign against Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier, to which particular representatives of the middle class accuse failure, also aims to maneuver Merz into the office. But Altmaier is also one of the Chancellor's closest confidants, which is why these attacks are also indirectly directed against Merkel. The Values Union, in which particularly conservative members and also members with a strong affinity to the economy and citizens who are close to the Union's parties organize themselves, expresses this frankly. It has called for the Chancellor's imminent departure once again.
On Kramp-Karrenbauer but they can not count for now, although they need the backing in the Merz camp as chairman and sends out the appropriate signals every now and then. AKK would prefer it best if they could keep their followers weighed as long as possible with the promised ministerial office.
Discord between AKK and Merkel is the goal
Or is it possible in the end to drive a wedge between Merkel and Kramp-Karrenbauer? A message like that of the "Welt am Sonntag", according to which the Chair is disappointed that the Chancellor will not be present at the start of the European election campaign, is to the taste of the Merz fans. In the CDU headquarters stressed that Merkel have been canceled for some time and in agreement with AKK. But sowing discord is not difficult in this web.
And then there are a few numbers that could test Kramp-Karrenbauer's loyalty to the Chancellor: once the CDU and CSU poll numbers - and the results of this year's election. It starts with the European and several local elections in Germany, followed by the autumn state elections in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia. Hardly anyone from the Union complains publicly about the weak poll numbers, is due to the upcoming elections. Still one hopes for positive values, if it really counts.
Otherwise, the tone towards the party chairman may increase sharply, the time could then also run away from it. What gave the CDU impetus, the new culture of discussion, the spirit of optimism: in the end, politics only counts success.
It would not be the first friendship that has broken up.