Kretschmer: No more business as usual after AfD successes

Mario Voigt, state chairman of the CDU Thuringia and parliamentary group leader of the CDU in the Thuringian state parliament, speaks to journalists before the CDU presidium meeting in the Konrad Adenauer House. / Photo: Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa

Following the AfD's election successes in eastern Germany, Saxony's Minister President Michael Kretschmer has demanded a clear change of course from the coalition under Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and from his own party. "This country needs a stable democracy, but that will only succeed if democracy, if the rule of law really solves the problems, then we will also succeed in removing the breeding ground for populists," said Kretschmer on Monday before meetings of the CDU leadership together with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was the Union's top candidate in the European elections on Sunday.

Von der Leyen did not make any comments when she arrived at the CDU headquarters in Berlin. CDU chairman Friedrich Merz plans to appear before journalists with her after the party leadership meetings. According to the provisional official results, the CDU was clearly the strongest party in Germany in the European elections on Sunday with 30.0 percent. With 15.9 percent, the AfD achieved its best result to date in a nationwide vote, and the party is the strongest force in eastern Germany by a wide margin.

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Kretschmer said that those who "warned and demanded that we as citizens must declare our allegiance were clearly punished" in the election. With regard to French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement of new parliamentary elections, he called on Scholz "to think about whether he should do the same or whether he should take our outstretched hand and we can resolve the major issues together". There can be no more business as usual. We also need to stop "always talking about other parties, warning against right-wing populists, demanding that we make commitments to each other on all kinds of issues". New state parliaments will be elected in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September.

The topics have been the same over the past two years, said Kretschmer: "Migration, energy policy, an encroaching state and the question of how to deal with this war, this terrible war in Ukraine." He criticized: "In this European election, Europe was not the force for peace and that is bitter."