The German CDU’s relations with its sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), are partnerships based on ideological cooperation, although they have not always been cloudless.
The CSU is a more center-right and more conservative political force. Being a coalition partner with the CDU at the federal level and forming a single faction in the Bundestag, the CSU retains its independence in terms of organization.
Founded in Munich in 1945 on the basis of Bavarian Christian Socialist political forces and organizations, the CSU refused Konrad Adenauer’s proposal to merge with the Christian Democrats and remained independent. The CSU pursues its own policy in Bavaria, which best meets the interests of this predominantly Catholic federal state, which is also one of the richest states in Germany. Bavaria has achieved such success, to a large extent, under the leadership of the CSU, which has been the ruling party in Bavaria for more than half a century and heads the state government. Today, the CSU has the largest share of members with a university degree among German parties – 39%.
Known as a party of Eurosceptic positions, the CSU stands for a regionally and nationally stable Europe based on the principles of federalism and subsidiarity. In cooperation with a dozen other European Christian Democratic and conservative parties, the CSU initiated the creation of the European People’s Party in 1976 and has been represented there with seven to ten members since the first European Parliament elections.
In 1976, the CDU and the CSU almost split after the CDU/CSU bloc was defeated in the parliamentary elections. Some CSU leaders then suggested dissolving the party alliance with the CDU, but a month later the crisis was resolved and the joint factional association functions on the basis of the “Agreement on the Continuation of the Factional Association between the CDU and the CSU.”
The inter-party agreement of 2017 declares that fundamental decisions of the CDU/CSU faction are made only with the consent of both groups. And the CSU may have an opinion on particularly important issues that differs from the majority of the faction, which it can defend independently in the Bundestag. In fact, the CDU leadership recognizes the right of the Bavarian partner party to vote separately from the position of the majority of the union faction. Thus, the two ideologically related political parties act as partners on the basis of broad autonomy and, having divided the spheres of federal influence, do not enter into a race with each other.
Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk