Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU, said he is not ruling out tougher laws to curb the excessive benefits that politicians might secure for their relatives. Speaking to the newspapers of the Neuen Berliner Redaktionsgesellschaft (NBR) and the Rheinpfalz, he criticized the AfD as “deeply rooted in patronage and nepotism”. He added that while he would prefer to avoid a new statutory regulation, the scale of the abuse might make it unavoidable.
Merz urged his own party to confront the AfD aggressively-not only on the specific issue at hand but also by challenging the AfD’s image as the party of “clean‑hands” and patriots, exposing its real conduct.
He pointed to misconduct in the CDU itself as a factor in the AfD’s rising popularity. “The CDU has given too much space for too long to topics that the AfD now distorts in an entirely unacceptable way-migration, for example” he explained.
Merz made clear that as long as he remains the CDU chair, a partnership with the AfD is excluded. “I am not willing to risk Germany’s republic and its record of success just to secure short‑term majorities in parliament” he said. He called the prospect of an AfD minister‑president elected with CDU votes “unthinkable”.
