Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has pursued a policy of “social democratisation”. With the adoption of key policies once branded as “left” – phasing out nuclear power, abolition of military conscription, introduction of quotas for women on company boards and establishment of a national minimum wage – she has aimed to win over the more conservative-traditional voters of the Social Democratic party (SPD). So far, this strategy has succeeded.
But now SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz has been campaigning with the old slogan of “social justice” to win back precisely this group. That the CDU could not prevent the election of SPD candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier to the presidency of the Federal Republic of Germany (Report, 13 February) could well be a portent for the Bundestag elections this year.
The CDU now faces a difficult task. Being clamped between a re-emerging SPD and the rightwing Alternative for Germany, it has to find its place in the party system anew. A year ago I did not think that the 2017 Bundestag election campaign could possibly be exciting.
Michael Pfeiffer
Neuhausen auf den Fildern, Germany
• Promising news from the Trump camp: the support for Greece expressed by Ted Malloch, the businessman mooted to be Trump’s nominee as ambassador to the EU, who has backed the IMF’s call to write off a substantial part of its debt burden and the lifting of the crippling austerity measures on the country (Report, 9 February). This call is particularly significant considering that the US is a major contributor to the IMF. Such a move by the US would obviate the demands, both external and internal, for Greece to exit the eurozone and the chaos that a return to the drachma would inflict on the Greek economy.
Benedict Birnberg
London
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