Former candidate for chancellor Armin Laschet was caught in a border check not far from his hometown. He took the opportunity to have an insightful conversation.
Former CDU leader Armin Laschet recently came across a checkpoint on the German-French border. Laschet was on his way to Strasbourg to the Council of Europe. “You drive from Aachen through the Ardennes and arrive in the southern Eifel, in Rhineland-Palatinate. Not exactly one of the main refugee routes,” the CDU politician told the magazine “Stern”. “But suddenly the federal police were there in Winterspelt and stopped me and checked me.”
He didn’t have any problems. “I was able to identify myself,” reports the former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia. He took the opportunity to ask police officers whether the checks were helpful. “The officials didn’t feel that way. Every federal police officer who is there is missing for security at train stations and airports,” said Laschet. “You can do that sometimes, but it’s symbolic politics and not a permanent solution.”
Laschet also warned his party not to rule out coalitions with the Greens after the next federal election. “We exclude the AfD, the Left and, at the federal level, the BSW. Anyone who excludes even more will declare the GroKo with Ms. Esken, Klingbeil and Miersch to be our desired coalition. What’s clever about that?” said the 63-year-old.
Laschet says he has now digested his defeat in the 2021 federal election against current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and is “unreservedly happy” again. His message is now “to reconcile instead of to divide,” he told the “Bunte”. “I’m glad that with my duties I don’t have to constantly say that the other parties in the government are all incompetent – it’s not always just one side that is right.”
A lot of things have become easier for him since 2021. “I no longer have a company car, but I like to drive my own car or use an e-scooter in the city.” The wounds have healed. “I didn’t hide after the election defeat, even if there were days when I pulled the blanket over my head,” said Laschet.