The AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht would “simply express the problems we have in Germany openly and freely,” said Maaßen. But at the solution level there are significant differences. The Union of Values does not say: “Foreigners out! Stop all immigration to Germany!” said Maaßen. She advocates a policy with a sense of proportion.
Above all, the party he is planning wants “much, much, much less state, no more paternalism.” When it comes to the AfD, he “percieves that their solution is: lots of government, but only government for Germans.”
The former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution justified the plans to transform the Union of Values into a party with the course of the CDU leadership under Friedrich Merz. Many members of the Union of Values would say that they “did not support Friedrich Merz in the election as chairman in order to get a ‘business as usual’,” said Maaßen.
Assuming that the members of the Union of Values agreed to split from the CDU on January 20th in Erfurt, in Maaßen’s words, the founding of the party will “happen relatively quickly.” There will then be a founding party conference within a few weeks and then registration with the Federal Returning Officer will follow. The structures of the union of values exist in the states right up to the district and district association level, he said.
Maaßen has been chairman of the right-wing conservative Values Union since January 2023. The group, founded in 2017, operates as a registered association and is not one of the official party branches. The group is a thorn in the side of the federal CDU because of its criticism of the official party course.
The CDU federal executive board unanimously decided in February to initiate proceedings to exclude Maaßen from the party. The justification for the action was that he continually violated the party’s principles and order and repeatedly used “language from the milieu of anti-Semites and conspiracy ideologists, including ethnic expressions.”
