This Monday, the party and candidate will officially come together again. The executive committee and board will meet in the morning, after which CDU leader Friedrich Merz will appear before the press together with Ursula von der Leyen. There they will announce something that will hardly surprise anyone: The Christian Democrats want to run in the European elections with the incumbent Commission President, and von der Leyen wants to do the same. The nomination as lead candidate of the European People’s Party on March 6 and 7 is then only a formality.