Overview
- Michael Kretschmer said on Wednesday that the CDU should “talk with everyone who wants to talk,” openly questioning the party’s long‑standing rule to exclude cooperation with the AfD and The Left.
- Federal CDU leader and Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reaffirmed the party‑congress decision to bar cooperation, and Greens, the SPD and civil‑society figures have sharply criticized Kretschmer’s stance.
- Some regional CDU figures in the East, including Mecklenburg‑Vorpommern’s party chief, backed Kretschmer’s pragmatic argument, exposing a widening rift between eastern state branches and the federal party leadership.
- Polling ahead of the September Landtag elections shows the AfD leading in parts of the East, and business groups including industry and employers’ associations warned that an AfD government would raise investment and energy policy uncertainty.
- Kretschmer pointed to Saxony’s ‘Konsultationsmechanismus’ for forming shifting majorities, but the AfD has so far refused to join that process, leaving it unclear whether this debate will change CDU policy before the elections and raising the risk of greater polarization and unstable regional governments.