Three of Germany’s major parties met on Saturday to firm up their programmes and candidates ahead of the nationwide elections on February 23.
With just six week to go, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) gathered for a party conference in the capital Berlin, where it confirmed Chancellor Olaf Scholz as its top candidate and adopted its election manifesto.
“There is a hell of a lot at stake,” Scholz told the crowd, describing the ailing Germany economy – long considered the motor of Europe – as at a crossroads.
“We are fighting to preserve and renew the successful brand ‘Made in Germany’ – for the ordinary people in our country. So, let’s fight,” he said.
After finishing, the 600 delegates celebrated him with a standing ovation for six and a half minutes.
The chancellor faces a tough task to get voters behind him and his party, which is currently polling in third place behind the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
At the party conference, he nevertheless projected confidence that the turnaround in the SPD’s fortunes can still be achieved.
“We will win,” he said.
The AfD is also gathered on Saturday in the eastern German town of Riesa for its two-day conference, at which it selected party leader Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor in the election.
Some 10,000 anti-AfD protesters delayed the start of the conference by two hours by blocking putting up barriers and blocking roads into town.
Weidel’s candidacy is largely symbolic given that there is no prospect of a majority in parliament in favour of an AfD chancellor, with other parties refusing to cooperate with the anti-EU, anti-immigration party.
Weidel told the delegates on Saturday that if the AfD were in power there would be large-scale deportation of migrants and that the message would be delivered that “the German borders are closed.
Meanwhile, the executive committee of the conservative CDU met to conclude its two-day closed-door strategy meeting in the northern German city of Hamburg.
Friedrich Merz, CDU party leader and front-runner to replace Scholz after the election presented the results at a press conference.
Merz stressed that the “absolute focus” of the CDU/CSU in the election campaign was economic policy.
If they win and can form a successful government, “we will have a different mood in Germany by the summer break in 2025,” he said.
He is going into the hot campaign phase “very, very confident.”
“We are ready to take responsibility for our country. But we also know that things cannot continue as they have for the last three years,” Merz said.
A fundamental change is needed in economic policy, the labour market, migration, internal security and parts of foreign and security policy, he said.
Friedrich Merz, candidate for Chancellor and party chairman of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union), speaks during a press conference after the winter retreat of the CDU federal executive at Design Offices Hamburg Hammerbrook. One focus of the two-day meeting is economic policy, which CDU Chancellor candidate Merz is emphasizing as a key election campaign issue. Marcus Brandt/dpa
Tino Chrupalla, AfD’s (Alternative for Germany) national chairman and parliamentary group leader, and Alice Weidel, AfD national chairwoman, stand on stage at the AfD’s national party conference following Weidel’s nomination as candidate for chancellor in the upcoming federal elections. The AfD plans to adopt its election manifesto during the conference in Riesa. Sebastian Kahnert/dpa
