An Experienced Team
The chancellor and 15 federal ministers together constitute Germany’s new Federal Government of the CDU/CSU and FDP. Personalities with substantial ministerial experience at the federal level form a majority around the Cabinet table. Members of the CDU/CSU will lead ten ministries and the FDP will head five ministries. New members of the government team are the CDU/CSU politicians Kristina Köhler, Norbert Röttgen, Ronald Pofalla and Peter Ramsauer as well as the FDP ministers Guido Westerwelle, Rainer Brüderle, Philipp Rösler and Dirk Niebel. Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger of the FDP already held the office of justice minister from 1992 to 1996. The two ministers Annette Schavan (CDU) and Ilse Aigner (CSU) remain in their previous ministerial posts. The Defence Ministry has become the responsibility of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (CSU), the former Economics Minister. Thomas de Maizière, one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s closest aides, has been promoted from Head of the Federal Chancellery to Minister of the Interior.
In that office he succeeds a political old hand who will play a key role in the new Cabinet: Wolfgang Schäuble (67), the experienced CDU politician who is also the oldest member of the Federal Government, is now in charge of the Federal Finance Ministry. Kristina Köhler is 35 years younger than Wolfgang Schäuble and thus the youngest member of the Cabinet. The 32-year-old CDU politician assumed the office of Family Minister following the resignation of Federal Labour Minister Franz Josef Jung and a Cabinet reshuffle on 27 November. The holder of a doctorate in sociology has gained considerable political experience as a member of the Bundestag since 2002, where she has primarily focused on the subjects of Islam, integration and extremism. Following the Cabinet reshuffle, Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), the previous Family Minister, took charge of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the ministry with by far the largest budget.
