CDU on families

The CDU wants parents who ask for it to get a childcare place for their child from the first birthday through the end of primary school. After-school care, primary schools, and all-day programs would be linked more closely, and daycare staff would be kept on even as the number of children falls.

Every child should get a childcare place if the parents want one. This applies from the first birthday to the end of primary school. After-school care and primary schools should work together more closely. Daycare staff should stay, even if there are fewer children.

The CDU treats home-based childminding as an equal option and wants to strengthen parents' right to choose it. Together with daycare and school operators, it plans a Saxon concept for all-day education at primary schools and a new role for after-school care (Hort). The legal right to all-day care that starts in 2026 would be carried out jointly with the operators. The party will examine moving daycare oversight from the state youth office to the education ministry. It also plans investment funding for operators, teams with mixed professions, and flexible models for childcare hours.

The CDU wants parents to decide for themselves whether their children are cared for at home, in daycare or by a childminder, and plans to further develop the Landeserziehungsgeld (state child-raising allowance) for this purpose. At the same time, family support and childcare are to be expanded and single parents given relief.

Parents should choose how their children are cared for. That can be at home or in daycare. The state child-raising allowance should continue for this. The CDU wants more support for families. Single parents should also get more help.

The CDU says it will oppose efforts that restrict this freedom of choice. Family policy is to be guided by the everyday life of the majority of families and to give more weight to families with several children. Parents in difficult situations are to get early counseling, including through stronger parent-child centers. For single parents, the platform foresees more counseling services, easier access to social benefits and a push for tax relief at the federal level. The party also wants to press at the federal level for more flexible working hours and to look into long-term working time accounts.

The CDU rejects loosening the criminal-law rules on abortion in Section 218 of the German Criminal Code. Couples who are unable to conceive are to keep receiving financial help.

Section 218 is the criminal-law rule on ending a pregnancy. The CDU does not want to loosen this rule. Couples who cannot have children should still get money for treatment.

The platform combines both statements in one family-policy commitment. Existing financial support for fertility treatment is to continue. The party rejects any change to the criminal provision on abortion.