Thorsten Frei to become new chair of the Union parliamentary group

Background: From the Chancellery to the faction leadership

In the previous legislative term, Frei had already held the position of First Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union faction under the then faction leader and opposition leader Merz. In this role, he was regarded as detail-oriented, reliable, and exceptionally well-connected – qualities that earned him the reputation of a seasoned parliamentarian.

Merz praised his confidant in the highest terms on Tuesday. Frei comes from the center of the faction and will ensure the perfect interplay between parliament, the coalition partner, and the federal government, the Chancellor said. Frei had played a significant role in the government's work to date and in the stability of the coalition. The reform successes of recent weeks were also his achievement.

CSU leader Söder supported the Chancellor's proposal. Frei would be a good chair of the joint Bundestag faction, Söder said. Even as Minister of the Chancellery, he had worked well with Frei.

Reactions from the coalition and the Union

Approval also came from the SPD. The Parliamentary Managing Director of the SPD Bundestag faction, Dirk Wiese, said in Berlin: „Ich habe mit Thorsten Frei in der Vergangenheit sehr gut zusammengearbeitet. Er freue sich auf die Zusammenarbeit mit Frei in dessen möglicher neuer Funktion, sofern die Unionsgremien dem Vorschlag zustimmten. In der früheren schwarz-roten Koalition habe er Frei als versierten Kollegen kennengelernt, „mit dem man gut verhandeln kann und der sehr detailliert in den Themen drin ist".

Leading Union politicians had already spoken out in favor of Frei. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt was also considered a possible candidate among younger MPs, but in the end the Minister of the Chancellery prevailed. According to ARD information, Frei had been considered a „sichere Bank" internally in recent days.

The trigger: Spahn's resignation

The change at the top of the faction became necessary because the previous faction leader Jens Spahn had resigned on Saturday. Spahn and his husband Daniel Funke had surprisingly announced the previous week that they had become fathers of a son with the help of a surrogate mother in the United States. In Germany – unlike in the United States – surrogacy is prohibited. Spahn himself had repeatedly supported the ban; the CDU had reaffirmed its rejection at the party convention in February 2026.

After the news of the fatherhood became known, discontent within the CDU grew by the hour, and calls for Spahn's resignation grew louder. Spahn initially defended himself by pointing out that in life not everything is „Schwarz" or „Weiß", but then stepped down after just under 14 months in office. In his resignation letter, he explained that the conflict between his private decision and the expectations of him as faction chair had become greater than expected.

Merz joined the calls for his resignation and asked the 46-year-old in a telephone call to give up the faction chairmanship. Until a successor is elected, CSU state group leader Alexander Hoffmann will lead the faction's affairs on an acting basis.

Open questions: Cabinet reshuffle and succession in the Chancellery

It remains open who will succeed Frei in the Chancellery. According to ARD information, the deputy faction chair Günter Krings could become the new Minister of the Chancellery – this solution would only entail two changes. If, however, Merz brings someone from another ministerial post into the Chancellery, a larger cabinet reshuffle would be necessary. Merz had already indicated over the weekend that he wanted to make a personnel proposal „relativ bald" and in coordination with the sister party CSU. When and on what scale reshuffles in the cabinet will take place remains open.

Frei himself enjoys a good reputation in the faction as a „Herzblut-Parlamentarier". In recent months in the Federal Chancellery, however, he came in for criticism – also because of a botched coalition meeting at Villa Borsig in the spring and because he was accused of neglecting coalition work with interview appointments instead of coordinating it. Against critics, the task will likely be difficult: the faction chair leads 208 MPs, without whom the federal government can hardly push through any important decision in parliament.

Outlook: Election on Wednesday and a reform autumn

In the coming days, talks are first scheduled to take place in the party and faction committees of CDU and CSU, before the 208 MPs of CDU and CSU vote on the personnel matter in a special session next Wednesday. If the committees agree, Frei would take on the second-most powerful office in the Union faction – directly behind the faction chair. This post will need to be filled anew in autumn in any case, when many of the government's reform plans go into the parliamentary process.

The report was broadcast on 22.07.2026 on Deutschlandfunk. The former traffic-light coalition of SPD, Greens, and FDP had paved the way for the change of government in May 2025; Merz has governed since then with a coalition of CDU and CSU.