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The CDU Adopts a Neoliberal Party Program (February 23, 1994)

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2. Improving Germany’s Competitiveness as a Location for Industry

71. We Christian Democrats developed the basic political concept of the social market economy, implemented it against strong resistance, and expanded it during several decades in government. It is now regarded as a model for economic and social systems throughout the world. Germany has managed to achieve an unprecedented level of economic development and has expanded its social security system on the basis of the principles of freedom and democracy. We still hold fast to the goal of equalizing living conditions throughout Germany, creating prosperity for all throughout Germany, and achieving a more equitable distribution of resources between the weaker and stronger members of society.

72. The changes in Germany, Europe, and the rest of the world have brought new economic, technological, and social challenges to Germany in its role as a location for industry. The creation of the European Economic Area, greater economic exchange with the states of Central and Eastern Europe, the internationalization of markets, growing competition from other countries in the quest to attract industrial investment, and, above all, the radically different social and economic conditions that have prevailed since German unification have created a need for us to improve our economic performance and our competitiveness in order to ensure social security and prosperity for future generations.

73. The socialist planned economy inflicted enormous ecological and economic damage on the Eastern part of Germany and left its mark on the people there, too. That is why, in the united Germany, all of the responsible parties in industry, society, and politics are tasked with pushing forward with economic, social, and ecological reconstruction in that part of the country. By building up a modern infrastructure, investing in jobs and innovative products, improving education and training, and strengthening research and development we are creating the basis for a thriving economy. Unification has also brought new opportunities for us all. In our strategies for the future, however, we must take into account the changes in our overall economic capacity. In Western Germany we have to stop merely trying to maintain the levels of growth in prosperity that we enjoyed in the past.

Unification offers us the chance to renew the economic and social order throughout all of Germany and to correct misguided developments in Western Germany. We want to promote individual performance and the willingness to take risks, remove bureaucratic obstacles to progress, deregulate wherever possible, privatize, remove subsidies, and encourage as broad a spectrum of the population as possible to play a role in capital production. We want to use economic incentives to address ecological concerns to a greater extent than ever before. We want to change our social security system in order to take the effects of demographic change into account and to guarantee social justice in the future.

74. As a country with few natural resources and high labor costs, Germany has to depend heavily on the efficiency and innovatory capabilities of its people. We must concentrate our skills on high-quality products and production techniques. The pace of technological progress is becoming ever faster, with ever-shorter product cycles, and innovations therefore need to be introduced at an ever-faster rate. Our competitiveness as a location for industry therefore depends to a large extent on our performance in research and development and on the application of new technologies such as biotechnology, genetic engineering, information technology, and environmental engineering. The future belongs to environmentally friendly products and technologies. Developing our economic system into an ecological and social market economy will enable us not only to expand our leading role in environmental technologies, but will also give us an important edge over our competitors in attracting future industrial investment.

In order to strengthen Germany as a location for industry, we advocate:

— reducing the role of the public sector and lowering taxes and other levies

—improving professional training at all stages, science and research, and the related infrastructure

—promoting leading-edge technologies and environmental protection

—privatization and the reduction of subsidies, deregulation, and the reduction of bureaucratic regulations and requirements, combined with the acceleration of approval procedures

—more flexible working hours and extended operating hours for machinery and the removal of the link between these things

—improving the information and traffic infrastructure

—ensuring social peace and social partnership, in particular

As an export economy, Germany depends on free trade. Protectionism interferes with the dynamic of the economy and stifles innovation. The European Economic Area has created a vast, integrated market within Europe, which must now be opened up to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In order to preserve and improve Germany’s and Europe’s attractiveness as a location for industrial investment, we are in favor of a European Economic and Monetary Union with open markets both internally and externally.

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