About a week ago I presented the list of social democrats ministers for Germany's new government.
These are the conservative CDU/CSU's ministers, as named by chancellor designate Angela Merkel:
Thomas de Maizière: Merkel's chief of staff. Former Interior Minister of Saxonia. He is expected to push for a reform of Germany's complicated relations between the federal and the states level. Merkel confidant.
Edmund Stoiber: Minister of Economics. Stoiber - currently still Minister President of Bavaria and chairman of CSU, the CDU's equivalent in Bavaria -, is pro-business, but with a strong preference for socialist-type income distribution policies. No substantial pro market initiatives to be expected from him. As former - unsuccessful - Schroeder challenger consider him more of a problem for Merkel than all the SPD ministers combined.
Wolfgang Schäuble: Merkel's predecessor as party chairman. Next to Merkel probably the most pro American minister in the grand coalition's cabinet. Economic policy preferences: think Stoiber.
Annette Schavan: Minister for Education and Science. Since education policy falls into the realm of the individual German states, Schavan doesn't hold much political power. Considered a close confidant of Merkel.
Horst Seehofer: Minister for Agriculture and Customer Protection. Specialist for Germany's socialized health insurance system. Not pro market - same as Stoiber -, and - other than Stoiber - not pro business. A reliable trouble maker for Merkel in the future - as he was in the past.
Franz Josef Jung: Minister for Defense. Not really a well known quantity. He is close political ally of Roland Koch, Minister President of the state of Hesse. Koch is considered a future challenger of Merkel.
Ursula von der Leyen:
Minister for Family. Not an easy to understand job description for
non-Germans. Her ministry is responsible for some family oriented
policies. Leyen is considered a Merkel supporter.
Leyen is
remarkable for two reasons. First, she is a mother of seven, and only
for just a few years active for the Christian Democrats, but already
was Minister for Social, Women's and Family Affairs in Lower Saxony.
Which raises the question why she was selected for minister jobs, with
so few party credentials.
Which brings us to the second reason. Leyen is daughter of Ernst Albrecht,
former Minister President of Lower Saxony. Albrecht became Minister
President in 1976 as a result of a mysterious defection of three social
democrats or of the SPD's coalition partner FDP in a secret balloting in the Lower Saxony parliament. His
unfortunate opponent, Karl Ravens of the SPD, was - my recollection gets cloudy here - thereafter challenged by a young party member, and lost to him as well.
The name of Raven's intra-party challenger: Gerhard Schroeder. I guess, you have heard about his later accomplishments... (You are kindly invited to present details of the Ravens-Schroeder controversy in the comment section of this posting.)
RealClearPolitics.com posts an English translation of a Spiegel interview with Merkel. It's nice to see Schroeder gone, but I'm underwhelmed with Merkel.
The first part of the interview is absolutely silly, revolving around whether and how a woman chancellor can or should express emotion. It's like an Oprah interview, but much more antogonistic.
In the second part, one expects Merkel to lay out some concrete plans. She doesn't. The question is: does she not have any ideas, or does she just not want to tell Spiegel what they are?
The whole interview seems like a cat and mouse game.
Posted by: ErikEisel | October 22, 2005 at 10:09 PM
does she not have any ideas ?
Even if she has ideas , it does not matter, since she has no power to turn her ideas into reality.
One could argue she has even less influence than she had when Schröder was chancellor. At that time she was the leader of a strong opposition party and controlled the Bundesrat. Now after the election disaster her party is on the same lavel as the Social Democrats and there is a clear left of center majority in the Bundestag withe the SPD, the Greens and the East German Communists.
Posted by: Johannes Thust | October 23, 2005 at 03:53 PM