He is juggling a tight, 12-seat Bundestag majority with 18 rebels among the younger CDU parliamentary party. At a test vote on Tuesday evening, many younger CDU MPs – with an eye on their future electoral prospects – fell into line. “In every [parliamentary] vote you have to look at what consequences ... voting behaviour will have,” said Spahn on German television, warning that Friday’s vote could “have consequences, with everything drawing to a halt”. As federal welfare minister, responsible for pension policy, she has made clear that Friday’s vote will decide “the future of the coalition”. On Tuesday, with that in mind, leading German agitprop group ZPS erected a life-size bronze statue outside the CDU’s Berlin headquarters of Walter Lubke, a Merz party member shot dead by a far-right extremist in 2019.
