“Appearance before the Union’s social policy wing is unlikely to be a walk in the park,” was the headline in the CGB ahead of Friedrich Merz’s announced speech at the CDA national conference on 25 April. And indeed, the Chancellor and CDU leader was met in Marburg by several thousand demonstrators protesting, among other things, against Merz’s announcement that the statutory pension scheme would, at best, remain a basic form of provision. Initially, there was only muted applause for the head of government in the hall as well. But then came a sigh of relief from the conference participants. In his speech, Merz backtracked and announced that the statutory pension scheme would remain the basic provision for old-age pensions. The Chancellor categorically ruled out pension cuts. His announcement that funded pension schemes would be given greater weight in future was also met with applause from many delegates.
Merz’s speech attracted considerable attention in the media and among the public, giving the CDA and the Christian Social movement as a whole a boost. Dennis Radtke, the CDA’s federal chairman, who was re-elected with 87% of the vote, used this opportunity to call on the Chancellor to involve the social partners and social organisations in the upcoming reforms. In doing so, he had the support of the Christian trade unions as well as that of CGB Chairman Henning Röders, who, in his written message, recalled the shared roots of the CDA and the CGB in Christian social teaching and called for the social profile of the market economy to once again be consistently regarded as a core task.
The Christian trade unions played an active role in shaping the CDA’s political stance at its national conference, notably through the motions put forward by the CDA/CGB Federal Working Group. Thus, at the request of the CDA/CGB Working Group, the Federal Conference voted in favour of creating a digital collective agreement register and against an amendment to the Working Hours Act that would move away from a daily maximum working time in favour of a weekly approach with daily working hours of up to 13 hours. Furthermore, at the request of the CDA/CGB Working Group, the Federal Conference called on the employees’ group within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag to advocate for swift and immediate amendments to the Works Constitution Act, the Federal Personnel Representation Act and the Soldiers’ Act in light of the ongoing development of GenAI. A motion by the working group calling for the effective and employee-friendly implementation of the EU Pay Transparency Directive was also referred by the Federal Conference to the Employees’ Group. In response to the Christian trade unions’ demand to “keep your hands off the joint taxation of married couples”, the Federal Conference adopted a resolution stating: “Spousal tax splitting is a constitutionally guaranteed principle of taxation that serves to promote marriage and the family. The Federal Conference therefore calls on the CDA Federal Executive and the Employees’ Group of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag to advocate for the abolition of income tax brackets III and V, as well as further development towards a family tax splitting system.”
Quelle: https://dhv-cgb.de/2026/04/30/rueckenwind-fuer-die-christlich-sozialen-nach-kanzler-rede-auf-cda-bundestagung/ (original German)
