Germany's beleaguered CDU faces a crucial few months

Significance

The results coincide with declining support for the CDU at the national level because of its mishandling of the latest stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and corruption scandals relating to the procurement of face masks and foreign donations. These developments could affect the choice of the CDU-Christian Social Union (CSU) chancellor-candidate, as well as the party's performance in September's federal election.

Impacts

• The Greens would likely work better in a CDU-CSU government under CSU leader Markus Soeder, rather than Laschet.
• A CDU-Green government would be more ambitious on defence policy than previous governments.
• With the Greens in government, fiscal policy would become more relaxed and this could filter through to the EU level.