Seehofer and Huber criticize Söder's green firewall
Former CSU chairmen Horst Seehofer and Erwin Huber accuse Markus Söder of strategic misdecisions. They criticize the CSU's hard stance against the Greens as politically shortsighted. This comes five months before Bavaria's municipal elections.
Five months before Bavaria's municipal elections, former CSU party chairmen Horst Seehofer and Erwin Huber have sharply criticized their successor Markus Söder. They view his demarcation from the Greens as a misguided strategy that endangers the Union's ability to govern.
Seehofer, replaced by Söder as minister president in 2018 and as CSU chairman in 2019, told Stern magazine: "This belongs to the strategic misdecisions of the last seven years." He stressed: "Discrediting the entire green movement is wrong."
Huber called for openness to cooperation: "For the Union, the firewall to the AfD must stand rock-hard. The door to the Greens must not be closed by populist bashing, but opened for political options to maintain our governability at federal and state levels." A green firewall is thus politically shortsighted and wrong.
Söder had repeatedly verbally attacked the Greens in recent years. After the February Bundestag election, when the CSU entered government and the Greens moved to opposition, he toned down his assaults. On March 8, 2026, councils and mayors in Bavaria will be newly elected.