The leadership of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) plans to honour former party leader and chancellor Angela Merkel with a reception to mark her 70th birthday. The art historian Horst Bredekamp will give a lecture at the ceremony at the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, CDU leader Friedrich Merz announced at a meeting of his party’s executive board in Berlin on Monday. The ceremony as part of the CDU’s “Berlin Talks” series has been agreed with Merkel. The former chancellor turns 70 on July 17. Merz told dpa afterwards that he had informed the CDU committees that the party …