Berlin, July 18th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will take up the controversy surrounding parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn at its regular presidium meeting on Monday at 11:00 a.m. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who chairs the CDU, announced the agenda item during an afternoon press conference following a German-French government meeting in Brühl.
Spahn is expected to attend the session himself, a spokeswoman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group said, even though he lost his seat on the presidium after February’s party congress. He has continued to take part in its meetings in his capacity as faction leader.
The controversy erupted after Spahn and his husband, Daniel Funke, announced on Wednesday that they had become parents. Their baby was born to a surrogate mother in the United States — a practice that remains illegal in Germany and one the CDU has consistently opposed legalizing. The apparent contradiction has triggered sharp criticism from within Spahn’s own party as well as from the opposition, which has accused him of applying double standards.
Among the loudest critics is Daniel Peters, CDU chairman in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and a member of the party’s federal executive board. In comments to the tabloid “Bild”, Peters called for Spahn to step down as parliamentary group leader, saying Spahn had “deliberately circumvented laws in effect in Germany” by pursuing a surrogacy arrangement in the US.
For his part, Spahn has said he will leave the decision on his political future to CDU and CSU lawmakers. “I will of course discuss the question of how things proceed with the parliamentary group when we meet again in September,” he told “Bild”. Asked in the “Ronzheimer” podcast whether he might resign, Spahn said: “In the end, only the parliamentary group can decide how things proceed.”
That reckoning is unlikely to come before September 8th, when the group holds its first regular meeting after the parliamentary summer recess — just two days after the closely watched state election in Saxony-Anhalt.
