Germany’s conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU, are expected to name their chancellor candidate soon.

Soeder said he was willing to run as the conservative candidate if he had the CDU’s backing. Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU, who took office in 2005, is stepping down after September’s federal election.

Following are key facts about Soeder:

* Premier of Bavaria since 2018, he trained as a lawyer and then worked as a journalist before entering politics and is media-savvy, with a Bavarian swagger, confidence, and directness that has appealed to voters beyond his southern state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

* Unusually in predominantly Catholic Bavarian, 54-year-old Soeder is a Protestant.

* A Star Wars fan, he also has a fondness for dressing up at carnivals as characters including Shrek, an ogre in the 2001 computer-animated film of the same name.

* Soeder criticized Merkel’s open-door policy during Europe’s 2015 migrant crisis and in March 2018 agreed with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer’s assessment that “Islam does not belong in Germany.”

* In a speech to the 2019 CDU party congress, he said he supported electric cars. “But the car is not the enemy in Germany. Some people think an SUV is worse than a nuclear power station!” In February of this year, he said a national coalition with the Greens would be possible but “not easy”, adding: “The current programme they have is not suitable for a coalition.”

* During the COVID-19 pandemic, he has appeared as a representative of Germany’s federal states at news conferences with Merkel and has cut a profile as a decisive leader and good communicator, even if Bavaria has struggled with the coronavirus more than some other states.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics/factbox-bavarian-soeder-ready-to-run-for-german-chancellor-if-cdu-supports-him-idINKBN2BY0GT

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The poll, published by the newspaper Bild, shows that 32% of the Free State of Bavaria wants to get away from the central power of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her European Union allies.

The Chairman of the Bayernpartei (Party of Bavaria) told RT UK that the state should be allowed to make its own decision independently from Berlin.

“We believe that Bavaria should be together and should decide its own economic situation, its own democratic situation, its own cultural situation.”

Weber explained that Bavaria doesn’t have the influence it deserves considering its size and the number of inhabitants.

“Now we are ruled by Berlin or Brussels. These people decide over the people of Bavaria and we have no influence in the so-called European Parliament. We have only 13 members for Bavaria. Greece, which has fewer inhabitants, has about 25.”

According to 2015 estimates, nearly 13 million people live in Bavaria compared to the 11 million who live in the whole of Greece.

Also speaking to RT UK, map maker Michael Hofman said: “Bavaria is a brand. And to me is a better brand compared than Germany. It tastes better, it smells better.”

Bavaria is well-known internationally thanks to the annual Oktoberfest held in Munich.

In January 2017 the German Supreme Court clamped down attempts to organise a “Bayexit” referendum, claiming that in Germany single states are not “masters of the Constitution.”

“Therefore there is no room under the constitution for individual states to attempt to secede. This violates the constitutional order.”

The Bayernpartei said the matter would not be settled by a court but by “the will of the Bavarians.”

Source: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/837811/Merkel-Germany-Brussels-rule-Bavaria-exit-from-European-Union-Brexit-video

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