At an event of the CDU Economic Council Aug. 31, Friedrich Merz, who might be the Economics Minister in a CDU-led government after the Sept. 26 national election, attacked plans of the EU Commission for special import tariffs on “climate-damaging” products made in China, India, and other states. Merz said that, if EU Commission introduced such a tariff, “that would not only be the end to free-trade policy, it would be the start of a new world trade conflict which would have only losers.” Merz said the new government must do everything “to prevent this nonsense which is being planned there in the European Commission—unfortunately under the leadership of a German Commission President,” referring to Ursula von der Leyen, who had been Germany’s first female defense minister in 2013-19.
Merz’s remarks also put him in opposition to a passage in the CDU election program that endorses the EU Commission plans.
