While the SPD policy under Schröder was stale Third-Wayist, and the Merkel government's SPD ministers are mostly Schröderite centrists, the SPD usually profiled itself within the coalition with leftist themes. First already at the time of coalition talks, when they essentially forced Merkel to ditch her whole election programme (which on the economy was to be largely another neoliberal revolution). A year ago, things flared up again over the issue of minimal wage. Though not getting far, Merkel relented on other social subsidies.

More recently, the CDU's Bavarian siamese twin, the CSU, rebelled. The party emerged weakened from regional elections, and got a new leader from that party's social wing, who wanted to prove himself to the establishment. The issue was another the SPD pushed earlier, and the CSU pushed in the opposite direction: on inheritance tax, they demanded a big raise of the tax-free limit.

The financial crisis was occasion for further challenges on policy, them being tax cut demands. Then, in an interview with Handelsblatt, even the CDU federal interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble (who failed recently with an expansion of surveillance powers) openly challenged her -- this time in a direction most ETers would approve:

However, at the party conference, the aforementioned Friedrich Merz made waves by demanding an end to the "cold progression" of income tax, e.g. people entering higher income tax brackets just because the limits of those aren't inflation-corrected. Or... I could say, Merz made waves with this -- in the media (for example for SPIEGEL, who titled: CDU-Parteitag: Merz stiehlt Merkel die Show = CDU party conference: Merz steals the show from Merkel). However, he may have stirred up delegates more with this:

Conservative dissatisfaction with Merkel's centrism

The above quote shows a view in the CDU that Merkel lets the SPD dictate on policy. The base's dissatisfaction with the compromises was thematised on ET a number of times by reader Martin. For example here:

...nowadays the parties compromise on most issues and as I said, I already don't agree with the parties before the compromises. [...] Most conservative voters will tell you the same as the CDU has given up conservatism on nearly every field apart from immigration and foreign policy, which are the only two, where I'm left of the center.

(This discussion led to Martin's How a conservative platform should look like diary and my Fünfparteiensystem diary. In the latter, I posited that the CSU may turn into a sixth federal party to take voters dissatisfied with the CDU from the right; I now note that new CSU leader Seehofer's more liberal and social person may mean only going non-voter remains for these people.)

One should turn to the main conservative broadsheet in Germany, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) to get a real sample on conservative mood and see this dissatisfaction brought to the point:

The CDU and the nation

The CDU is a conservative party like any other, but on the issue of the nation, post-WWII (West) Germany is not a country like any other. This was for long a problem in the view of conservatives, who want to restore a "normal" sense of patriotism and pride in the own nation (as if "normal" is something good).

This was particularly apparent on the immigration front. In post-WWII West Germany, citizenship used (continued) to be (and still is in large part) based on bloodline (jus sanguinis): proving that you had ethnic-German ancestors gave you automatic citizenship, even if you spoke no German and were culturally Russian -- while non-ethnic-German residents, even those born in Germany and perfectly assimilated, faced extreme hurdles. (Also see Citizenship across Europe by In Wales.)

So when new immigrants first arrived as guest workers, the theory was that they would eventually go back home please, and the Gastarbeiter myth was insisted upon until the late Kohl era. Later, not unlike in many other countries, CDU and CSU politicians were simultaneously complaining about a lack of integration on the part of immigrants, while being responsible for bureaucratic and legal obstacles to integration.

When the Schröder government pushed for changes in citizenship law, the Union fought it. They succeeded in foiling a law permitting double citizenship: the possibility of having twin loyalties is unimaginable from the conservative viewpoint.

The CDU and the CSU just couldn't get to terms with the reality of Germany as an immigration country. At least German-ness be protected! This is how a controversy about the existence and proposed requirement of a Leitkultur -- c. "guideline culture" (the word became the misnomer of the year 2000) -- was kicked off (by Friedrich Merz), and re-surfaced repeatedly.

German into the constitution

So here is the actual content of rebellion.

Merkel wasn't amused.

While official languages are defined in many European constitutions, Merkel spells out the danger in going down this route: it could lead further, emboldening further demands.

Representatives of the Turkish minority weren't amused, either. It rained criticism and/or outrage from intellectuals and other parties, too.

However, I note that in practice, this will only be something the CDU base pleases itself with: this motion has about a snowball's chance in hell to be followed up. It is unconceivable that the CDU+CSU would ever gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament (and the also necessary two-thirds majority of the votes of the state governments is also unlikely), and no other parliamentary party supports it.

Commentary

You can read a good press review in English at SPIEGEL ONLINE. But I will quote the end of the aricle, translating commentary from SPIEGEL's own language columnist Bastian Sick:

"The proponents of the CDU measure also have some understandable arguments. There is no doubt that the German language is our most valuable cultural asset and that it deserves to be protected. But that begs the question of how the German language should even be defined. Who prescribes what is German and what is not? Would enshrining the German language in the constitution mean that using English words -- such as feedback, meeting, catering and laptop -- make you liable to prosecution? … Will kids at school get minus points if they find something 'cool'?"

"Some have criticized the CDU resolution for being xenophobic. But anyone with a bit of common sense will realize that it is not immigrants who are threatening the German language. If there's anyone in Germany who should be held accountable for a decline in language skills, it is us Germans ourselves -- and particularly our politicians. Via nonsensical reforms and education cutbacks, German class in many schools has been pared to the bare minimum. Plus, advertisements and industry slogans have given kids the impression that it hardly matters how one writes. Plus, spell and grammar-check will fix any mistakes."

(Oh, and remind me sometime to write a diary about my distaste as someone without German as first language for Neudeutsch...)