Armin Laschet warns the CDU against the shift to right-wing politics

In an interview, the NRW Prime Minister explains what a new CDU party leader he should be and why he is not in the elections.

the Ferdos Forudastan and Christian Wernicke

Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet strongly opposed the efforts of the Union to move the CDU to the right. In an interview a South German newspaper Laschet said, "I'm convinced that such an axle shift would be bad." Head of the NRW State Alliance and Vice-President of the Federal CDU, who is the heavyweight of the party.

Laschet also indirectly disassociated himself from one of his most recent criticisms from Jens Spahn, the Federal Minister of Health and the CDU Presidency, to take refugees. Laschet said, "In any case, I think it is a mistake to have the impression that migration is the biggest problem for everyone – this analysis is factually and politically bad and harmful."

In addition to Spahn, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU's secretary-general and former parliamentary leader Friedrich Merz, compete on the edge of Angela Merkel at the helm of the party. Merkel announced on Monday that he would not run the post again.

Laschet announced that he would campaign for future party leadership so that Christian Democrats would not abandon a "middle class". The 57-year-old CDU vice president explained why he did not yet claim Merkel's successor as federal party chairman. "By now separating the chancellor and the party presidency, the Heads of Government of the Supreme State are incompatible."

Laschet criticizes the miserable image of the big coalition

At the same time, however, Laschet made it clear that this resignation was only valid for the moment. He resigned from a later Chancellor candidate in the end of the legislature. "I have always believed that the CDU's proven tradition of bringing together the chancellery and party leadership when the party has government responsibility." Merkel, however, announced that he would give up the party agency, but in 2021 he would rule until the end of the legislature. Only at the Berlin parties, Laschet says, "I can not endanger the successful government of the largest federal state."

Laschet identifies the exact criteria that a new person at the head of the party has to meet in his view: "In any case, it will be definitely European: it must stop the cohesion of this society and reject the anger towards certain groups of the population. The social market economy is convincingly and persuasively and of course you have to be able to win the elections. "

Laschet criticized the miserable image of the great coalition in Berlin. This is the main reason for the serious losses of the EU and the SPD in the recent elections: "We must give the first response: we finally use the rule to use the time, move something!"