During her opening remarks, Dr. Angela Merkel addressed achievements and challenges of the past and the future of the party itself. The CDU should not be divided internally due to disagreements of party members. Merkel advocated cohesion and called on members to work together for the welfare of the society. Being conservative would not be an equivalent to stagnancy but should be a combination of values and the acceptance of current changes. The participants showed their approval of the speech through a continued applause of many minutes.
Furthermore, bilateral meetings between the Indian delegation and CDU as well as KAS representatives took place, among them an exchange with Dr. Gerhard Wahlers, Deputy Secretary-General and Head of European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and talks with Mr. Jan Metzler, Member of the German Paliament and Mr. Christian Hirte, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy.
The following panel discussion addressed the European elections in the summer of 2019. Participants were senior representatives of political and research areas, such as: Roland Freudenstein, Deputy Director and Head of Research at Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, Patrick Hetzel, Member of Parliament (belonging to Les Républicains in France), Katalin Novák, Minister of State for Family, Youth and International Affairs and Vice President of Fidesz, Hungary as well as Stephan Toscani, President of the Regional Parliament of the Federal State of the Saarland, CDU.
What is more, issues such as the global pact for migration and defence expenditures were intensively discussed. Nonetheless, the highlight remained the election of the new Party President: The party members were to decide between three candidates. Two ballots were needed to confirm Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as new head of the CDU. She obtained 517 votes and won against Friedrich Merz, who had 482 of the votes in the final ballot. Further, Mr. Paul Ziemiak was elected new Secretary-General of the CDU. Angela Merkel handed over the office to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who expressed her gratitude for a fair competition and the party support.
More bilateral meetings took place on the next day with Dr. Klaus Schüler, Federal Secretary of the CDU and Markus Koob, Member of the German Parliament and of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Further meetings with CDU representatives were arranged upon individual interest of the Indian participants. The delegation’s visit was an important step forward in strengthening the party to party cooperation between CDU and BJP. It was the third time that the BJP had nominated an official delegation for the Congress of the CDU.