Event reports
The federal party conference of two days comprising of 1001 delegates from the local, regional, and state associations, as well as delegates from foreign associations was organised by the CDU from 05-07, Dec. 2016. For this event, the India office of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. mounted a delegation to Germany comprising of politicians. Members of the delegation were Nalin Satyakam Kohli, National Spokesperson BJP and Attorney-at-Law, B. N. Vijayakumar, MLA (BJP), Jayanagar Constituency, C. RajaSekhar, Coordinator Good Governance Government Programs, BJP Na-tional Team and Ravindra Madhav Sathe, Member BJP Training Cell and Executive Director, Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini (RMP).
At this conference the party came to a decision as to what the basic party principles, party platforms and statute will be. Furthermore the Federal President, the Secretary General and other acting members were elected. Besides many important agendas of party congress, there were bilateral meetings with the Member of German Parliament with key issues like economic relations, business as well as cultural relations and broadening an important bilateral relationship.
The highlight of the visit was the Indian delegation’s meeting with Dr. Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. The delegation also had intense interactions with Dr. Gerhard Wahlers, Deputy Secretary General and Head of European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Christian Hirte, Jan Metzler, both Members of German Parliament, Ralph Brinkhaus, Member of the German Parliament and Deputy Chairman of the CDU Parliamentary Group as well as Gurjit Singh, the Indian Ambassador to Germany.
On Monday the delegation went to “Zeche Zollverein Essen”, where they experienced the historical situations of coal mining in Essen. Before the international evening there was a bilateral meeting of the delegates with Christian Hirte, Member of German Parliament regarding possibilities of establishing Indo-German Lawyer’s forum in the coming year. At International evening all the delegates were welcomed by David McAllister, Member of the European Parliament, EPP- and IDU-Vice-President. He briefed about next day’s voting for new federal Presidency and Board of CDU and invited all to Grugahalle, where Angela Merkel, Chancellor and other members were scheduled to address the delegates.
At the start of the federal party Merkel announced that the crisis of the refugee influx would not be repeated. At the same time, the Chancellor praised how people had work together during the refugee crisis. With a view to the EU, Merkel said that Germany can only be doing well in the long term if Europe is doing well. Further the Chancellor also promised to face the challenges of globalization. This also meant accepting free trade agreements. After highlighting all key issues in the coming year, at the conclusion she declared her renewed candidacy while seeking support from the fellow party members.
After attending plenary session in Grugahalle the delegation had Bilateral Meetings at International office, Congress Hotel Atalntic, where they met firstly Jan Metzler, Member of the German Parliament, who discussed with the delegation about forwarding the bridges between two countries through small and medium enterprises, which help in bringing young people together. Through this young entrepreneurship how digitalization can be spread in urban and sub-urban areas of two countries.
Later on delegates had meeting with Dr. Wahlers, Deputy Secretary General and Head of European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. He discussed about the requirement of new approaches for refugee issue not only from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, but also for Africa. As Angela Merkel said, that we need specific approaches for dealing with migration from Africa, on which KAS is already working and would also like India to propose some models, which could help to handle the refugee situation in Europe in a better way.
In the evening the delegates got the opportunity to meet Angela Merkel.
On Wednesday there was a bilateral meeting with Ralph Brinkhaus, Member of the German Parliament, Deputy Chairman of the CDU Parliamentary Group. The discussions focussed on the initiatives of BJP government, issues changing out of Brexit, the demographic dividend of India and an aging Germany & such other issues of bilateral & global importance.
The visit of delegation was an important step forward in strengthening the party to party cooperation between CDU and BJP. It was second time, that BJP had nominated an official delegation for the Congress of the CDU.