BERLIN, July 11 (Reuters) – The conservative front runner to succeed Angela Merkel as German chancellor ruled out cutting taxes after the next general election, saying a return to full employment would be the best way to steady public finances after the coronavirus pandemic.
“No tax cuts now – we don’t have the money,” Armin Laschet, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), told ARD public television in an interview on Sunday.
Laschet won a bruising battle to lead the ruling CDU earlier this year and, with the party now leading the opinion polls, is favourite to succeed Merkel, who is standing down after 16 years in power after the September vote.
The 60-year-old premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has positioned himself as a continuity candidate and, in his remarks on the economy, also ruled out the idea of tax increases.
“The key question is: How do we achieve better revenues for the state after the pandemic?” said Laschet, in answer to a question from a young CDU activist.
“My answer is that we have, during the crisis, spent a lot of money to keep liquidity in the companies so that they can invest. To raise taxes now would be exactly the wrong thing to do.”
Before the pandemic, Germany had run budget surpluses while not raising taxes thanks to increasing employment, he added: “We want to stick to that approach.”
In the latest opinion poll by INSA for Bild am Sonntag, the CDU led on 28%, ahead of its junior coalition partners the Social Democrats and the opposition Greens, both on 17%.
Laschet declined to be drawn on which coalition partner or partners he might prefer to team up with and added that, if defeated, he would resign as state premier and come to Berlin to lead the parliamentary opposition.
“We aren’t talking about losing,” he said. (Reporting by Douglas Busvine; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
