CDU/CSU

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CDU/CSU
Chairperson	Armin Laschet (CDU) Markus Söder (CSU)
Parliamentary leader	Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU/CSU Group)
Founded	1949; 72 years ago (1949)
Youth wing	Young Union
Ideology	Christian democracy Liberal conservatism Pro-Europeanism
Political position	Centre-right
European affiliation	European People's Party
International affiliation	International Democrat Union
European Parliament group	European People's Party
Colours	Black
Bundestag	246 / 709
Bundesrat	28 / 69
State Parliaments	561 / 1,889
European Parliament	29 / 96
Ministers-President of states	7 / 16
Website
www.cducsu.de
Politics of Germany Political parties Elections

CDU/CSU, unofficially the Union parties (German: Unionsparteien) or the Union, is the centre-right^[1] Christian-democratic^[2] political alliance of two political parties in Germany: the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU).

According to German Federal Electoral Law, members of a parliamentary group which share the same basic political aims must not compete with one another in any federal state.^[3] The CSU contests elections only in Bavaria, while the CDU operates in the other 15 states of Germany. The CSU also reflects the particular concerns of the largely rural, Catholic south.^[4] While the two Christian Democratic parties are commonly described as sister parties, they have been sharing a common parliamentary group, the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group, in the German Bundestag^[5] (German: CDU/CSU-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag)^[6] since the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. The parties themselves officially remain completely independent with their own leadership and only few issue- or age-based joint organisations, which makes the alliance informal. However, in practice the committees of the parties harmonise their decisions with each other and the leader of one party is usually invited to party conventions of the other party.

Both the CDU and CSU are members of the European People's Party and the International Democrat Union. Both parties sit in the European People's Party group in the European Parliament. The CDU and CSU share a common youth organisation, the Youth Union, a common pupil organisation, the  [de], a common student organisation, the Association of Christian Democratic Students and a common Mittelstand organisation, the  [de].

History[]

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Both the CDU and the CSU were established after World War II and share a perspective based on Christian democracy and conservatism and hold the dominant centre-right position in the German political spectrum. The CSU is usually considered the de facto successor of the Weimar Republic–era Bavarian People's Party (BVP), which itself broke away from the all-German Catholic Centre Party (DZP) after World War I, but the CSU included also parts of the agrarian and liberal Bavarian Peasants' League and parts of the bavarian wing of the DVP. However the CDU's foundation was the result of a major re-organisation of the centre-right political camp compared to the Weimar Republic. Although the CDU was largely built as the de facto successor of the Centre Party, it successfully opened out to non-Catholic Christians (many of them affiliated with the German People's Party until 1933) and successfully asserted itself as the only major conservative party (outside of Bavaria) against initial competition from other Catholic, Protestant or national conservative parties such as the German Party during the early years of the Federal Republic.

The BVP become sister party of the DZP and they did not compete against each other except for the May 1924 German federal election, the 1924 Bavarian state election and the 1925 German presidential election. The DZP and BVP were mostly jointly represented at the Imperial governments. For a short time, there existed the  [de] as sister party of the CSU during the 1957 West German federal election, the German Social Union (DSU) as sister party of the CSU before the 1990 East German general election, the East German CDU as sister party of the CDU until the German reunification and the  [de] until 1947. Alliance for Germany was a coalition for the 1990 East German general election consisting of the CDU, the DSU and Democratic Awakening which merged into the CDU.

Political stances[]

The CDU and the CSU usually only differ slightly in their political stances. The CSU is usually considered a bit more socially conservative (especially on family issues, e.g. the CSU favors providing infants' parents with compensation (Betreuungsgeld) if they intend not to use the public day nursery system to work^[7] while the CDU favors public funding of day nurseries). The CSU government in Bavaria has implemented one of the strictest regulations for shopping hours in Germany in order to protect employees. The CSU also strongly opposed ideas of an income unrelated system of contributions to public health insurances, a proposal which met a lot of approval in the CDU in 2010.^[8]

CSU politicians often make their mark as self-declared defenders of Bavaria's state rights and cultural independence from federal or European Union bureaucrats, even in times of conservative federal governments or conservative presidents of the European Commission. In 1998, then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the CDU had to pressure the CSU intensely not to veto the introduction of the euro as the new currency in Germany.^[9] On the other hand, the name euro was the idea of former CSU chairman Theo Waigel, who served as finance minister when the euro was introduced and held a very pro-European position in contrast to the Bavarian government of Edmund Stoiber. Since 2016, the CSU has strongly been advocating the idea of a maximum number (Obergrenze) of 200,000 people per year to limit the number of asylum seekers. This is opposed by the CDU because they claim that it is impossible to limit the number through border control.^[10]

While both parties officially identify themselves as non-denominational Christian, the Catholic influence on the CSU is far stronger than that on the CDU since Bavaria is predominantly Catholic while Christians in Germany as a whole are approximately equally balanced between Catholics and Protestants. There are nevertheless strong regional differences within Bavaria and Germany as a whole with large predominantly Protestant areas in northern Bavaria and large predominantly Catholic areas in North Rhine-Westphalia and South Western Germany having a strong effect on CDU state politicians. Saarland's former CDU Minister-President Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer heavily opposed same-sex marriages in July 2017 while the CDU in Schleswig-Holstein was in favor, with Saarland having the largest share of Catholic Christians in any German state.

Tensions[]

The differences between the CDU and the somewhat more socially conservative CSU have sometimes led to conflicts in the past. These tensions climaxed during the 1970s when Helmut Kohl became CDU chairman in 1973, then considered a moderate or even progressive politician and also a personal foe of the right-wing then-CSU chairman Franz Josef Strauss, who had held that office since 1961.

Brief 1976 separation[]

After the CDU/CSU narrowly lost the 1976 West German federal election which had seen Kohl as the common chancellor candidate of the two parties, the CSU's future Bundestag representatives met on 19 November at a closed meeting at Wildbad Kreuth in a Hanns Seidel Foundation compound which is the CSU's educational foundation. With a 30–18 vote, one abstention and one invalid vote, the CSU deputies decided to separate from their common faction with the CDU deputies in the Bundestag. The decision had been initiated by the CSU chairman Strauss, then himself a Bundestag deputy. The official reasons were to create a more effective opposition (the CDU would approach moderate conservatives while the CSU would approach the right) and gain more speaking time in parliament.

As a party chairman, Strauss also announced that in addition the CSU as a party would terminate its self-restriction to Bavaria and foster the foundation of local CSU associations outside of the party's home state, running in all future German federal and state elections against the CDU on a distinctly more conservative platform than the CDU's. Strauss coined the term Vierte Partei ("fourth party") after the CDU, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). This term was technically misleading since the CSU had always been a distinct party from the CDU, therefore four parties had already been represented during previous Bundestag terms.

During the conflict, the , the (West-Berlin), the (Saarland), the (North Rhine-Westphalia) and the (Bremen) were founded. On 12 December 1976, the vote was rescinded after the CDU had threatened in turn to form local associations within Bavaria and to run in Bavarian elections against the CSU.

2018 refugee dispute[]

In 2018, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, a former Minister-President of Bavaria and the leader of the CSU, opposed CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy on Syrian refugees in Germany. Seehofer hoped to place restrictions on incoming refugees, many of whom enter the country through Bavaria. His stance was seen as being in part motivated by the 2018 Bavarian state election in which it was feared that the far-right Alternative for Germany would make gains. The dispute threatened to bring down the Merkel government which relied on the CSU for its parliamentary majority as Seehofer had indicated his resignation on 2 July, but he already rescinded it a day later after an agreement over the issue between the coalition parties (the CDU, the CSU and the SPD) had been reached.^[11]

Leaders of the Group in the Bundestag[]

• Konrad Adenauer (1949)
• Heinrich von Brentano (1949–1955; 1961–1964)
• Heinrich Krone (1955–1961)
• Rainer Barzel (1964–1973)
• Karl Carstens (1973–1976)
• Helmut Kohl (1976–1982)
• Alfred Dregger (1982–1991)
• Wolfgang Schäuble (1991–2000)
• Friedrich Merz (2000–2002)
• Angela Merkel (2002–2005)
• Volker Kauder (2005–2018)
• Ralph Brinkhaus (2018–present)^[12]

Electoral history[]

Federal Parliament (Bundestag)[]

Election	Chancellor candidate		CDU				CSU				CDU/CSU			Government
			Constituency		Party list		Constituency		Party list		%	Seats	+/–
			Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%
1949		Konrad Adenauer (CDU)			5,978,636	25.2 (#1)			1,380,448	5.8 (#4)	31.0	139 / 402		Coalition
1953			9,577,659	34.8 (#1)	10,016,594	36.4 (#1)	2,450,286	8.9 (#4)	2,427,387	8.8 (#4)	45.2	249 / 509	90	Coalition
1957			11,975,400	39.7 (#1)	11,875,339	39.7 (#1)	3,186,150	10.6 (#3)	3,133,060	10.5 (#3)	50.2	277 / 519	28	Coalition
1961			11,622,995	36.3 (#2)	11,283,901	35.8 (#2)	3,104,742	9.7 (#4)	3,014,471	9.6 (#4)	45.4	251 / 521	26	Coalition
1965		Ludwig Erhard (CDU)	12,631,319	38.9 (#2)	12,387,562	38.0 (#2)	3,204,648	9.9 (#3)	3,136,506	9.6 (#3)	47.6	251 / 518	0	Coalition
1969		Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU)	12,137,148	37.1 (#2)	12,079,535	36.6 (#2)	3,094,176	9.5 (#3)	3,115,652	9.5 (#3)	46.1	250 / 518	1	Opposition
1972		Rainer Barzel (CDU)	13,304,813	35.7 (#2)	13,190,837	35.2 (#2)	3,620,625	9.7 (#3)	3,615,183	9.7 (#3)	44.9	234 / 518	16	Opposition
1976		Helmut Kohl (CDU)	14,423,157	38.3 (#2)	14,367,302	38.0 (#2)	4,008,514	10.6 (#3)	4,027,499	10.6 (#3)	48.6	254 / 518	20	Opposition
1980		Franz Josef Strauß (CSU)	13,467,207	35.6 (#2)	12,989,200	34.2 (#2)	3,941,365	10.4 (#3)	3,908,459	10.3 (#4)	44.5	237 / 519	17	Opposition
1983		Helmut Kohl (CDU)	15,943,460	41.0 (#1)	14,857,680	38.1 (#2)	4,318,800	11.1 (#3)	4,140,865	10.6 (#3)	48.7	255 / 520	18	Coalition
1987			14,168,527	37.5 (#2)	13,045,745	34.4 (#2)	3,859,244	10.2 (#3)	3,715,827	9.8 (#3)	44.2	234 / 519	21	Coalition
1990			17,707,574	38.3 (#1)	17,055,116	36.7 (#1)	3,423,904	7.4 (#4)	3,302,980	7.1 (#4)	43.8	319 / 662	85	Coalition
1994			17,473,325	37.2 (#2)	16,089,960	34.2 (#2)	3,657,627	6.5 (#3)	3,427,196	7.3 (#3)	41.5	294 / 672	25	Coalition
1998			15,854,215	32.2 (#2)	14,004,908	28.4 (#2)	3,602,472	7.3 (#3)	3,324,480	6.8 (#3)	35.2	245 / 669	49	Opposition
2002		Edmund Stoiber (CSU)	15,336,512	32.1 (#2)	14,167,561	29.5 (#2)	4,311,178	9.0 (#3)	4,315,080	9.0 (#3)	38.5	248 / 603	3	Opposition
2005		Angela Merkel (CDU)	15,390,950	32.6 (#2)	13,136,740	27.8 (#2)	3,889,990	8.2 (#3)	3,494,309	7.4 (#6)	35.2	226 / 614	22	Coalition
2009			13,856,674	32.0 (#1)	11,828,277	27.3 (#1)	3,191,000	7.4 (#6)	2,830,238	6.5 (#6)	33.8	239 / 622	13	Coalition
2013			16,233,642	37.2 (#1)	14,921,877	34.1 (#1)	3,544,079	8.1 (#4)	3,243,569	7.4 (#5)	41.5	311 / 631	72	Coalition
2017			14,027,804	30.2 (#1)	12,445,832	26.8 (#1)	3,255,604	7.0 (#6)	2,869,744	6.2 (#7)	33.0	246 / 709	65	Coalition

European Parliament[]

Election	CDU		CSU		CDU/CSU
	Votes	%	Votes	%	%	Seats	+/–
1979	10,883,085	39.1 (#2)	2,817,120	10.1 (#3)	49.2	40 / 78
1984	9,308,411	37.5 (#1)	2,109,130	8.5 (#3)	46.0	39 / 78	1
1989	8,332,846	29.5 (#2)	2,326,277	8.2 (#4)	37.7	31 / 78	8
1994	11,346,073	32.0 (#2)	2,393,374	6.8 (#4)	38.8	47 / 99	15
1999	10,628,224	39.3 (#1)	2,540,007	9.4 (#4)	48.7	53 / 99	6
2004	9,412,997	36.5 (#1)	2,063,900	8.0 (#4)	44.5	49 / 99	4
2009	8,071,391	30.7 (#1)	1,896,762	7.2 (#6)	37.9	42 / 99	7
2014	8,807,500	30.0 (#1)	1,567,258	5.3 (#6)	35.4	34 / 96	8
2019	8,437,093	22.6 (#1)	2,354,816	6.3 (#5)	28.9	29 / 96	5

See also[]

• Austrian People's Party
• Politics of Germany
• Religion in Germany
• Roman Catholicism in Germany

References[]

External links[]

• CDU/CSU-Fraktion im Deutschen Bundestag