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The Week in Germany: Politics October 14, 2005 Merkel to be chancellor in "grand coalition" Angela Merkel is poised to become Germany's first-ever female chancellor under a coalition deal that forces her rival Gerhard Schroeder from office but awards key cabinet posts to his party.
The breakthrough accord between Germany's two largest parties — Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and Schroeder's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) — paves the way for a left-right "grand coalition" tasked with breathing new life into Europe's largest economy, Merkel said in announcing the deal on Monday. Neither the conservatives nor the SPD won enough support in a Sept. 18 election to form a government with their preferred partners, forcing three weeks of horse-trading over cabinet posts that ended only when Schroeder agreed to step aside on Monday after seven years as chancellor. In exchange, the SPD was able to wring control of eight ministries in the future government, including key portfolios such as foreign affairs, finance and labor. Merkel's CDU and its CSU Bavarian sister party will have six ministries, including economy, defense and interior. All told, though, the allocation of the chancellor and chancellery minister posts to the CDU will mean that the 16 cabinet seats will be split evenly between the two parties. The new government began to take shape on Thursday as the SPD named its ministerial picks, including party chief Franz Muentefering as vice-chancellor and minister for labor and social affairs.
The key foreign affairs and finance posts will go respectively to Frank-Walter Steinmeier, outgoing chancellor Schroeder's chief of staff, and Peer Steinbrueck, the former governor of Germany's most populous state, party officials said. Justice minister Brigitte Zypries, development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul and health minister Ulla Schmidt were all tapped to stay in the posts they currently occupy. Under the SPD plan, new faces in the future cabinet will include Sigmar Gabriel, the former state prime minister of Lower Saxony, as environment minister, and Leipzig Mayor Wolfgang Tiefensee, as transport minister. So far, the only conservative appointment that has been made public is that of the economy and technology ministry, which would be headed by Edmund Stoiber, governor of the conservative state of Bavaria. Formal negotiations to hammer out a detailed program covering all aspects of future government policy are expected to begin next week and be concluded by mid-November, Merkel said on Monday. Schroeder will take part in the talks, but will not serve in the new government, he said Wednesday. Negotiations are expected to focus on the rival parties' substantial differences on tax and labor market policy, where the SPD is set firmly against conservative plans to ease rules on firing and to let firms set individual wage deals. Ahead of the talks, polls showed that a majority of Germans would be happy with the first grand coalition government in their country since the 1960s. Some 58% of Germans said they thought a grand coalition was a good thing, while 64% believe it would be able to push through reforms to revive the nation's sluggish economy. Links:
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