Posted on 10/15/2005 12:09:48 PM PDT by Lessismore
Germany's new government line-up began taking take shape as the Social Democrats said party chief Franz Muentefering would become the number two to incoming conservative chancellor Angela Merkel.
Muentefering, a close ally of outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, would also hold the post of labour minister, senior party official Matthias Platzeck said Thursday.
He confirmed that the key finance and foreign ministries, will respectively go to Peer Steinbrueck, a state premier, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the current minister in the chancellory.
The 49-year-old Steinmeier is also a close ally of Schroeder and a smooth political operator who has earned the respect even of his opponents.
The names emerged as the Social Democrats met in Berlin to nominate ministers to fill eight cabinet posts Schroeder managed to wring from Merkel in post-election negotiations in exchange for his departure.
It is expected that Muentefering will play a role in shaping the overall approach of the future coalition government, a compromise being hammered out by the left and Merkel's Christian Democrat alliance after they finished neck-and-neck in the September elections.
The 65-year-old's nomination was "a good decision for social democracy in all of Germany," said Platzeck, who is premier of the state of Brandenburg.
Hans Eichel, the outgoing finance minister, said he had full confidence that Steinbrueck would pursue measures plotted by the Social Democrats to manage Germany's spiralling budget deficit.
"Peer Steinbrueck will do a very good job of it, I'm certain," Eichel told journalists before entering the party meeting.
"Everything I proposed and much more still will be done now."
Steinbrueck also faces the task of bringing under control an inflation rate that reached a four-year high in September, just one of the ills plaguing the German economy.
As the German press on Thursday wrote the political obituary of Schroeder, they described him as a passionate and popular leader who nonetheless failed to turn around the economy.
The two-term chancellor bade farewell to the nation Wednesday as he addressed a trade union summit in Hanover, saying he would support Merkel's government but would not serve in it.
"I will not be part of the next federal government. Definitely not," the two-term chancellor said.
"I genuinely want to support it with all the strength I have. And that is not meant as a threat."
The Social Democrats had hoped that Schroeder would agree to become vice chancellor, but he said his new role merely to help steer his party through the tricky coalition talks, expected to last about a month and designed to draw up a formal government programme.
As well as the finance, foreign affairs, and labour ministries, the SPD is also to get the justice, health, environment, transport and aid and cooperation ministries.
The Christian Democrats will have six posts -- economy, interior, defence, agriculture, education and family, as well as the speaker's chair.
Their only confirmed new minister so far is at economy, where conservative Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber will exchange Germany's wealthiest region for the reins of a national economy that is Europe's biggest but is stagnating badly.
Stoiber has vowed to "draw on my experience in Bavaria to create a dynamic economy for the whole of Germany".
The jockeying for the ministries come amid speculation Merkel will fail to contain the clashing egos and policies in the left-right coalition, something last seen in Germany in the 1960s.
Her key ally Stoiber has tried to reassure her, telling reporters that "she will be a good chancellor and will have me ... by her side all the way."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.