Hoppermann closes ranks around Merz — and puts the coalition on the clock

The CDU has apparently decided that the Merz debate has gone on long enough. Franziska Hoppermann, the party’s general secretary, says the personnel discussion around the chancellor is finished and should stay that way. What follows, in her view, is less talk and more administration — a rare demand in Berlin, where the supply of declarations usually exceeds the supply of results.

Hoppermann told the Rheinische Post that the party expects Merz to keep the reform course and ensure that the agreed measures are actually carried out. She said the discussion over personnel was over and that this was a good thing. The point now, she argued, is to bring the country together and push ahead with the necessary modernisation steps.

The pressure on Merz did not come out of nowhere. After three heavy defeats in September, the CDU was left bruised: 17.2 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, 4.9 per cent in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where it failed to enter a state parliament for the first time, and 18.8 per cent in Berlin. Merz later admitted that federal politics had played a major role in those losses, including his own person, while also saying he wanted to stick to his reform path.

Now Hoppermann is demanding speed, especially on social insurance. The reforms due are, she said, absolutely necessary. If the government does nothing, fewer and fewer contributors will have to carry ever higher burdens. Her warning was direct enough: if nothing changes, the country will be producing the extremists of tomorrow.

Pensions sit at the centre of the dispute. Hoppermann has put Labour Minister Bärbel Bas under pressure, saying too many decisions from the coalition committee are still open and that the pension bill must be presented quickly. In June, the pension commission submitted 33 recommendations. Among them are the abolition of the pension without deductions for especially long-serving insured workers, a protection pension for those who can no longer work for health reasons after many years of contributions, and a further long-term rise in the retirement age.

Union and SPD agreed at the beginning of July to implement those recommendations. Hoppermann now wants the SPD to stick to that deal. The package, she said, must be put on the road, and the agreements already reached must be honoured. On the dispute over the pension without deductions, she sees Union and SPD as not all that far apart.

The financial backdrop is hardly comforting. For 2026, federal payments to the pension insurance system are budgeted at around 127.8 billion euros. In the draft budget for 2027, the figure rises to a little over 132 billion euros. Health and long-term care insurance are also under pressure, with the GKV-Spitzenverband estimating the financing gap in statutory health insurance for 2027 at around 18 billion euros if further contribution increases are to be avoided.

Long-term care insurance is no better off. The association expects a deficit of 4.4 billion euros this year. Even with an already running federal loan of 3.2 billion euros, revenues from October onwards are no longer expected to cover all benefits. By the end of the year, the association calculates a shortfall of around 500 million euros.

Hoppermann’s message to Merz is therefore clear: hold the line, even if resistance grows. At the same time, the government must react faster when problems hit citizens directly. People, she says, want stability and orientation. That requires a stable government — and seriousness from the SPD as well. In Berlin, even that modest standard still seems to be treated as a special achievement.

Written by Thorben Thiede thorben.thiede@alpineweekly.com