After lengthy negotiations, a commission in the centre-right CDU has proposed that an equal number of women and men fill posts in the group's leadership by 2025.

The plan on the proportion of women in party offices and seats provides for a gradual increase in the quota for governing bodies starting at the regional level. On January 1st, 2021, a quota of 30 percent for women is to apply, and in January 2023 a quota of 40 percent is to be met. At the beginning of 2025, the quota for women will be 50 percent.

The compromise came after 11 hours of tough negotiations by the CDU's Structural and Statue Commission, said DPA on Wednesday.

It's not set in stone yet: the plans on the binding quota have to be approved at the CDU's federal party conference in Stuttgart, scheduled for early December.

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Why is the party proposing this?

Although the top two jobs are held by women (the party's current leader is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and Merkel is Germany's first female Chancellor), women make up only a quarter of CDU members. This is something the party leadership wants to change and hopes introducing a quota will help.

Other parties in Germany, such as the Left Party, the SPD and Greens, which is led by a woman and man team of Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, already hold similar policies.

The CDU plans will include similar rules in composing its lists for elections to the state, national and European parliaments.

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A system will also be put in place so that local party groups can report on their progress in increasing their share of women members.

What does it mean?

If passed, the regulation will apply to group elections of board members, such as deputy chairpersons and committee members, but not to individual elections of chairpersons, member representatives or treasurers at federal level.

It would only be possible to deviate from the women's quota if not enough women apply.

The commission also proposes to introduce a “political parental leave” (politische Elternzeit).

Having children should not be a problem to political commitment, the commission said. At all levels, from the local association to the federal executive board, the proposal would allow for parents to suspend posts for up to a year and then resume the post.

According to the proposal, parents should only be able to be voted out of office by a two-thirds majority during this period.

Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo: DPA

However, the plans are subject to approval at the CDU party conference. And there are already signs of resistance within the party against the idea which was put forward by CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.

The CDU Economic Council questioned if a quota was needed given the strong representation of women at the top of the party.

“I wonder whether the CDU needs this debate on women's issues at all in view of a German Chancellor, an EU Commission President and currently still a party leader, as well as three out of five heads of its federal ministries in female hands,” the President of the CDU-affiliated association, Astrid Hamker, told newspaper the Passauer Neue Presse.

“To me, approaches such as that of Ms Merkel for the economy or that of Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer for the CDU seem rather over-motivated and unrealistic.”

Debate on status of CDU's lesbian and gay group

Part of Kramp-Karrenbauer's initiative is also a revaluation of the status of the Lesbian and Gay people in the Union (LSU) group. If the party leader gets her way, the LSU is to be put on an equal footing with the student union RCDS, which can introduce its own motions at party conventions.

However, the discussion about a clear status for the LSU was postponed to Wednesday morning after the debate during the night, DPA said.