Berlin. Ilse Aigner is to become Federal President. The Handelsblatt received this information from party circles on Sunday. Accordingly, CDU leader Friedrich Merz will propose the CSU politician on Sunday evening at a dinner with the members of the CDU presidium. On Monday, after the meetings of the Presidium and Board of Directors, he will appear with her in front of the press.
Merz now also supports the personnel proposal. Back in April, CSU boss Markus Söder brought Aigner into play for the first time as the successor to Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD). His term of office ends in March of next year.
Merz's circle said that he met with Aigner in his holiday home on Lake Tegernsee in the summer and discussed the possible nomination. Aigner lives not far away in a village in Upper Bavaria. The two are considered friends. It was said that Merz did not want to make a commitment at the meeting.
Since then, however, Aigner's name has come up again and again. In the past few weeks and days, she has also received support from SPD politicians, such as party leader Lars Klingbeil or Prime Ministers Anke Rehlinger (Saarland) and Manuela Schwesig (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania).
There was also approval from the Greens, for example from Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Cem Özdemir. Recently, a number of CDU politicians also lined up behind Aigner, so that at the end of the week it was considered highly likely that she would become the candidate of the CDU and CSU.
The 61-year-old herself commented on Instagram on Sunday. There she looked back on her eight years as President of the State Parliament and thanked the MPs for the trust they had placed in her. In this office she had already claimed to act in a non-partisan manner, but “with a clear stance when it comes to protecting our democracy and the dignity of our constitution”. There will also be “a lot to do in the future – and I look forward to making my contribution!” she wrote at the end.
On Sunday afternoon, Minister of State for Culture Wolfram Weimer praised the decision in favor of Aigner. Weimer is considered a close confidant of the Chancellor and, as a publisher, launched the Ludwig Erhard Summit on Lake Tegernsee, in which Aigner has already taken part several times. Both have known each other for many years.
“Ilse Aigner is a cheerful, balanced person of heart – exactly the right person for a nation in great irritability,” explained Weimer. “She is liberal without being arbitrary, self-confident without false pride, clever without any conceit, she is conscious of tradition, a Catholic believer and yet far from any missionary zeal, she has great attitude without allowing herself to be held back by empty phrases.”
Aigner began her political career with the Junge Union in Bavaria and was active in the local council. In 1994 she entered the state parliament and four years later in the Bundestag. There she was Minister of Agriculture and Consumer Protection in Angela Merkel's cabinet. In 2013 she returned to state politics with the aim of becoming prime minister. She was Deputy Prime Minister to Horst Seehofer (CSU) and Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy. After Markus Söder won the power struggle within the party, Aigner became Minister of Construction for a few months in 2018 before becoming President of the State Parliament.
The Federal Assembly will meet on January 31, 2027. It consists of 1,260 members, half from the Bundestag and half from the federal states. The CDU and CSU, together with the SPD and the Greens, have a clear majority.
