The conservative Heimatunion ist Sachsen believes that establishing the Werteunion as a party would be counterproductive. This would only further fragment the conservative camp, said Heimatunion chairman Sven Eppinger on Saturday when asked by the German Press Agency. The background to this are statements by the former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and head of the Werteunion, Hans-Georg Maaßen, that he wants to found his own party. The Heimatunion is a grassroots movement within the CDU in Saxony. As a consequence of earlier disputes within the Werteunion, its Saxon offshoot decided to continue under the name Heimatunion in 2022.
According to Eppinger, the CDU has succeeded in narrowing the "representation gap" between it and the AfD through course corrections. The Free Voters and the "Bündnis Deutschland" are already operating in this gap. "As a further 'gap filler', the Values Union will merely ensure that more votes fall short of the 5 percent hurdle. The winners will then be left-wing and green parties. The CDU is finally back on the right track. We are continuing on this path," emphasized Eppinger, who is standing as a direct candidate for the CDU in the state elections in Saxony on 1 September.
Eppinger referred to the beginnings of the Werteunion: "In 2017, conservative and economically liberal groups came together to form the Werteunion with the sole aim of correcting the course of the CDU and CSU in favour of a bourgeois policy. Thanks in part to the sustained work of these groups, the CDU has changed course and Friedrich Merz was elected chairman as a counter-proposal to Angela Merkel." This change of course is expressed in the draft of the party's new basic program, in which the party "clearly commits to turning away from the disastrous mistakes of Merkel's policies".
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