German election: CDU candidate Armin Laschet presents 100-day program

Christian Democrat (CDU) candidate Armin Laschet attempted to brush aside the weekend’s disappointing TV debate by presenting a four-page “immediate program” for his first 100 days in office on Monday.

The six-package plan, containing 19 promises, had two basic purposes: Firstly, to stop the CDU’s slide to historic lows in the opinion polls with less than two weeks to go before the election, and secondly, to distinguish the CDU’s plans from that of a potential center-left government under Social Democrat (SPD) Olaf Scholz.

Laschet was understandably keen to downplay the polls, which currently give Scholz a six-point lead. “The voters are voting on September 26, and then we start from zero,” he reminded reporters at a press conference at CDU headquarters in Berlin. “It doesn’t matter who is in the lead now, the issue is, and this was repeated yesterday in the debate very precisely, that we would get a very different republic with the SPD, the Left, and the Greens.”

A new plan, after 16 years in power

Laschet was keen to point out that the 100-day plan comprised a few issues not addressed in Sunday’s TV debate, particularly domestic security, which his party sees as their natural policy turf.

The plan also offered a number of tax-relief promises for low and middle-income earners, something the CDU had offered little of in its 16 years in power under Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Key points included:

Families: Raising child allowance; raising tax credits for single parent families; allowing child care costs to be made tax deductible; limiting family care costs to €700 ($825).

Security: Installing 1,000 new video cameras in railway stations every year; a minimum prison sentence of six months for any attack on a police officer or other first responder; the creation a national security council based in the chancellery to coordinate foreign and domestic security.

Climate: Making farmers’expenses for climate protection tax deductible; interest-free loans for installing solar panels.

Infrastructure: A “fast-track” approval system for power lines and railways.

Tax relief: Employees’ tax-free allowances would be raised from €1,000 to €1,250 ($1,180 to $1,475), while the maximum wage for mini-jobs – low-income, part-time jobs exempt from income tax that many students in Germany depend on – would be raised from €450 to €550.

Help for middle classes: No tax rises for small and medium-sized businesses.

Many of the points in the plan had already been presented in the CDU’s election manifesto, though by making them into pledges for his first three months in office, Laschet hoped to infuse with them with a little urgency.

• Who could succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor?

  Olaf Scholz

  Plumbing new depths with each election, the SPD decided to run a realist rather than a radical as their top candidate in 2021. Finance Minister and Vice-Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former mayor of Hamburg, and Merkel’s deputy in the grand coalition, is seen as dry and technocratic. But the 62-year-old has seen a marked rise in opinion polls, as voters crave stability and a safe pair of hands.

• Who could succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor?

  Armin Laschet

  CDU chairman Armin Laschet, a long-time supporter of Angela Merkel, heads Germany’s most populous state. Conservatives routinely underestimated the jovial 60-year-old, famous for his belief in integration and compromise. During the election campaign he has come across as vague and unfocussed and suffered in opinion polls following gaffes and slip-ups.

• Who could succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor?

  Annalena Baerbock

  At the age of 40, Annalena Baerbock has been a Green Party co-chair since 2018. A jurist with a degree in public international law from the London School of Economics, her supporters see her as a safe pair of hands with a good grasp of detail. Her opponents point to her lack of governing or ministerial experience and her occasional gaffes in interviews.

  Author: Mark Hallam, Rina Goldenberg

Opposing parties call out policies as status quo

Politicians from other parties immediately laid into the plans as being too weak and unoriginal. Renate Künast, agriculture minister from 2001 to 2005, the last time the Greens were in power in Germany, tweeted that the CDU’s climate protection plans failed to give farmers the security they needed in the face of the climate crisis.

“This ‘immediate program’ has proved that Laschet and the CDU have not understood how farmers are doing,” she wrote. “Farmers are being promised planning security. But everything will just stay as it is in nature, environment, and animal protection.”

There was also criticism from the free market-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), whose Bundestag member Carina Konrad described Laschet’s plan as “ambition-free business-as-usual.”

Some observers also expressed doubt about the financial feasibility of the plan, and what it meant for the CDU’s promise to re-apply Germany’s “debt break,” which was loosened during the COVID pandemic. Jens Südekum, an economist at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, told the Reuters news agency that the financing for Laschet’s plans were “completely unclear.” “This will create budget holes in the double-digit billions,” he said.

While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year’s elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-cdu-candidate-armin-laschet-presents-100-day-program/a-59168586?maca=en-rss-en-ger-1023-xml-atom