Sven Schulze says CDU will drop blanket rejection of AfD motions in Saxony-Anhalt

In the wake of the CDU’s heavy loss in the recent Saxony-Anhalt state election, former top candidate Sven Schulze, now chair of the CDU parliamentary group, told host Markus Lanz that the party will abandon its long-standing "firewall" of automatically rejecting any AfD initiative in the Landtag. He said the CDU will examine each issue on its merits and decide how to vote, while unequivocally refusing to act as a majority-builder for the AfD or to form a coalition.

Schulze noted that AfD state leader Ulrich Siegmund will have to look for support elsewhere and argued that the previous exclusion policy had not delivered results. He also obtained written confirmations from his deputies that no informal agreements with the AfD will be made. Nonetheless, he questioned whether cooperation would actually diminish the AfD’s influence.