Some 18 Jung union members in the CDU’s parliamentary group threatened to rebel against the new pension package, arguing that it represents too much of a compromise with Merz’s coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and places a heavy burden on younger generations in the future. Should members of the JU group vote against the pension law, it would be enough to thwart the plans of the government, which has a parliamentary majority of just 12.
A test vote among members of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on Tuesday indicated that enough young MPs had decided to drop their opposition in view of Friday’s actual vote.
Dissatisfaction over the pension plan, under which current pension levels will be maintained beyond 2031, had been simmering in the conservative youth organization for some time. At a JU conference in southern Germany in mid-November, at which Merz also spoke, young conservatives demanded that the CDU leadership renegotiate the plan.
Scaring the youth?
CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn spent much of the past week trying to quell the rebellion. According to media reports, Spahn met personally with several JU Bundestag members over pizza and wine at his home last week – either to persuade or threaten them, depending on whose account one believes. “I just have friendly, frank conversations. I don’t make threats. That’s not part of my toolkit,” Spahn said Sunday night on Karen Miosaga, the TV debate show on the public network. ARD,
Spahn also warned that if the government loses the vote on Friday, the consequences could be dire: “The result would be that everything would stop for a while: unemployment benefits, migration, energy policy,” he said.
But political observers say CDU leaders underestimated JU’s power, and particularly its passion over the pension issue – which they say directly affects Germany’s youth. Independent political consultant and commentator Johannes Hilje said, “The mistake that Friedrich Merz and Jens Spahn made is that they recognized it too late.” “They left it too late to consult them. They could have borne the brunt of the conflict.”
After all, Merz had promised JU that he would take their situation into consideration, Hilje said. “Ultimately, it’s a question of political management and government craft, standing up to your various colleagues, and I think Merz didn’t do that,” he told DW.
This development is fairly new, and is partly a result of the fact that Germany has an aging population and an older electorate. “There is a tendency among the former big parties, the SPD and CDU, to orient themselves towards older voters,” Hilje said. “And that automatically makes the situation for youth organizations a little more confrontational.”
young and exciting
All major political parties in Germany have a youth organization that is officially part of the party, designed to promote political engagement in younger generations as well as develop new talent.
The organizations have different age limits for members: between 14 and 35 for the JU and the SPD’s youth organization Jusos (a metaphor for “young socialists”), while members of the Greens’ Grüne Jugend are considered to be no older than 28. Most of them also have significant membership numbers: JU, Jusos and the Left Party’s youth organizations each have more than 70,000 members. Many of Germany’s leading politicians, including former Chancellors such as Gerhard Schröder, began their careers in their party’s youth organizations.
Schröder made his name as Jusos leader in the late 1970s, and traditionally, the SPD youth have been the most outspoken of the big parties in terms of showing their political strength: Upon becoming Jusos leader in 2017, Kevin Kuhnert angered his party leaders by openly demanding that his party, the SPD, join another “grand coalition” with the CDU under Angela Merkel. Refuse to.
A new conservative confidence
In contrast, according to political scientist Uwe Jun of the University of Trier, JU has so far been quite obedient to the CDU.
“Confidence in the Junje union is not as strong as we see now,” Jun told DW. “In general, we can say that youth organizations have become more self-confident. They want to see their point of view represented more strongly in politics.”
Problems with youth have been increasing across the political spectrum in recent weeks: Grune Jugend co-leader Louis Bobga tells pseudodeutsche zeitung Last week the newspaper said that “the Greens are not courageous enough.” In particular, Bobga was disappointed that the Greens were not more forthright in the recent debate surrounding Merz’s comments on immigration.
“A lot of people are no longer clear about what the Greens’ position is,” said the newly elected 23-year-old. “We must go into the next federal election with clear messages.”
In general, it appears that Germany’s political youth organizations see their role in making their parties bolder – or more dogmatic. “They are more for pure motives, they are less pragmatic, and they represent more radical positions across their respective party’s spectrum,” June said.
“They’re a bit like orchestrators of parties,” Hilje said. “Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn’t. You can’t go very far when you lead a youth organization.”
The latest political youth organization, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) “Generation Germany” (GD), may test that last argument in the coming months. Installed last weekend in the city of Giessen amid occasionally violent protests, the new GD leader, Jean-Pascal Hohm, and his allies promoted mass deportations from Germany as the centerpiece of their political platform.
The establishment was met with no small controversy: many of GD’s new members are linked to the extremist Identitarian movement, and Hohm himself is classified as a right-wing extremist by the domestic intelligence agency in his home state of Brandenburg.
“We want to be a training ground for future leaders of the party,” Hohm said at last weekend’s conference. “We also want to develop office-bearers, elected representatives and hopefully future members of government.”
This article was edited by Reena Goldenberg
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