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I disagree Stefan. First of all, foreign policy was an issue. A smaller, granted, but foreign policy never decided elections - except the last.

Turkey won´t become a EU-member, the axis Paris-Berlin within the EU will be replaced by more cooperation with smaller EU-states, and outside the EU the axis Paris-Berlin-Moscow will perish. Merkel will adress the Chechnya war when talking to Putin, and the arms embargo for China will continue. Germany wants more dialogue with the US; it is unbearable that Schröder and Bush haven´t phoned for months. It´s essential to set the aims we have together (e.g. Iran).

I agree that regarding Iraq, there will be no shift. A CDU government cannot and will not send troops in at a time, when more and more coalition countries withdraw (for instance Norway, as announced today).

The question of Turkey is a problem that has to be solved in ten or fifteen years. I agree that at the moment there is no chance for additional countries to join the EU. The EU has enough work to do at the moment.

But i disagree with the position of the CDU there. You can not make foreign policy on such a base and it does not help our economic interests. To take such a strong position at a time when it is not necessary is making the same mistakes as Schröder again. There are a lot of countries within the EU and outside the EU (UK USA) supporting Turkey. We need a common position within the EU and the CDU is not helpful here.

There will be no real change in the relation and friendship to France. What kind of cooperation should that be? If you look at the different EU topics there have always been different coalitions. Every german government had special relations to France and this was a wise and clever decision.

If you believe that Chechnya will be a major topic then you should wake up in the real world where other interests are important. Just look at the peace and human rights loving green party. You must be very young if you believe that the CDU will change anything there. Russia is too important for us to be childish sorry.

Hopefully there will be better relations to the US but it would be not fair to establish some hopes here that there will be major changes in our foreign policy under a CDU government.

And so on and on

Unemployment taxes and economy are the issues of that election campaign and these are the reasons why i vote for the CDU and why the CDU will win.
If foreign policy would have played a major role we would see Schröder again because a vast majority in our country supports his position including a huge part of my conservative family.