“We have a clear party resolution in the CDU. We do not collaborate with the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). Not in parliaments, not in local councils,” Merz told public broadcaster ARD.

Asked whether this also applied at the local level, he added: “No means no… even at the local level.”

Merz has faced criticism for comments made in a previous interview with broadcaster ZDF about dealing with the AfD at the municipal level that had been widely interpreted as a softening of the CDU’s opposition to cooperation with the right-wing populists. 

In the ZDF interview, Merz had explained that if an AfD candidate was elected as a district administrator in Thuringia or a mayor in Saxony-Anhalt, those were democratic elections: “We must accept that. And, of course, in local parliaments, ways must be sought to collaboratively shape the city or district.”

During Sunday’s ARD interview, Merz said his comments referred to a challenge faced by all parties, not just the CDU.

“We need to find ways, and we do find these ways.” He noted that “in all parliaments in Germany, in all of them, including all local councils, there are majorities without the AfD.”

The head of the CDU’s parliamentary group added: “A right thing does not become wrong just because it’s said by the wrong people. We pursue our policies based on our convictions, and that’s all that needs to be said.”

Merz also reiterated his opposition to a ban on the AfD. “Party bans have rarely achieved anything in the Federal Republic of Germany. People who have gone astray politically still remain.”

The AfD is under observation from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on suspicion of being a right-wing extremist group.