Against the backdrop of the polls and election results in the European elections, CDU leader Friedrich Merz has once again blamed the traffic light parties for the AfD’s rise in strength. “The opposition cannot halve the AfD if government policy doubles the AfD,” he said in the ZDF summer interview, which was due to be broadcast on Sunday evening.
It is also the case that “we have a problem in the East”. Merz continued, saying that he himself travels a lot in the East and tries to understand the people there. The unresolved problems in everyday life, in refugee policy, as well as in schools, businesses and many other areas of life “lead to this voter behavior”.
The AfD became the second strongest force in Germany in the European elections, while the traffic light parties lost out. In the five eastern German states, the AfD even became the strongest party. It sees this as a boost for the state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September, where it expects to make large gains.
The SPD, Greens and FDP “barely play a role in the East anymore,” said Merz. He would rather compete with these parties in the East than with the AfD – but that is not the case. The CDU, on the other hand, “still exists in the East.” The Christian Democrats would try to “find answers” in areas such as integration, the labor market and education policy, he said, with a view to the upcoming state elections.
