It was noiseless with the FDP, there was trouble with the Greens and the SPD took quite a lot of time. But now all three traffic light parties have gathered their staff for the new federal government.
The new federal cabinet at a glance
Federal Chancellor: Olaf Scholz (SPD)
- Born: 14. June 1958
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Place of birth: Osnabrück
- Last office: Federal Minister of Finance
Scholz’s career is like a rollercoaster ride: two years ago, he crashedly lost the election of party chairman to the leadership duo Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans. But Scholz was in great shape as finance minister in the first year of the Corona crisis. When the economy called for support because of the corona lockdowns, it was Scholz who made the billions loose. The SPD gathered behind its vice chancellor and nominated him as a candidate for chancellor. His unhappy work as SPD general secretary under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been forgotten. Not completely forgotten are the inconsistencies from his time as Hamburg mayor: violence on the sidelines of the G-20 summit and his role in tax exemptions for a Hamburg bank are stains on the otherwise clean slate.
Chancellery Minister: Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD)
- Born: September 23, 1970
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Place of birth: Hamburg
- Last position: State Secretary in the Ministry of Finance
In Berlin it is said that no one except Scholz’s wife Britta Ernst is as close to Scholz as Wolfgang Schmidt from Hamburg. The two politicians have been working together for almost two decades. When Scholz was mayor of Hamburg, Schmidt acted as his governor in Berlin and in 2017 was in charge of organizing the controversial G20 summit in the Hanseatic city.
Defense Minister: Christine Lambrecht (SPD)
- Born: 19. June 1965
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Place of birth: Mannheim
- Last office: Federal Minister of Justice
The lawyer, who, among other things, studied administrative sciences in Speyer, was a blank slate in the SPD parliamentary group for years. She made her breakthrough in 2019 as Federal Minister of Justice. With new laws it took action against hatred on the Internet, improved the protection of parcel carriers and expanded the rights of tenants.
Minister for Labor and Social Affairs: Hubertus Heil (SPD)
- Born: November 3rd, 1972
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Place of birth: Hildesheim
- Last office: Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs
As SPD general secretary in the early 2000s, the political scientist experienced an extremely divided party and in 2009 decided not to be re-elected. As Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs (since 2018), he campaigned for the right to return from part-time to full-time work, the restriction of temporary employment and the fight against child poverty.
Minister of the Interior: Nancy Faeser (SPD)
- Born. 13. July 1970
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Place of birth: Bad Soden
- Last office: SPD parliamentary group leader in the Hessian state parliament and SPD state chairwoman
Nancy Faeser has not yet appeared in federal politics. The 51-year-old lawyer has been a member of the Hessian state parliament since 2003. She was elected chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in 2019 and followed Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel to the head of the Hessian SPD. Faeser was the SPD chairwoman in the Hessian committee of inquiry into the NSU murders.
Health Minister: Karl Lauterbach (SPD)
- Born: February 21st, 1963
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Place of birth: Düren
- Last office: Member of the Bundestag
Karl Lauterbach is a doctor and epidemiologist, he received his doctorate from Harvard University in Boston, USA. In the 1990s he was director of the Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Cologne and a member of the Advisory Council on Health Care. The 58-year-old SPD politician has been a member of the Bundestag since 2005.
Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development: Svenja Schulze (SPD)
- Born: 29. September 1968
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Place of birth: Düsseldorf
- Last office: Federal Environment Ministry
The studied German studies and political scientist now wants to contribute her climate policy expertise to development cooperation. The now 53-year-old began her political career in North Rhine-Westphalia, where she was SPD Minister for Innovation, Science and Research. In 2018, Schulze moved to Berlin as Federal Environment Minister.
Finance Minister: Christian Lindner (FDP)
- Born: January 7th, 1979
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Place of birth: Wuppertal
- Last office: Federal Chairman of the FDP
The FDP chairman went into politics early and rose quickly. He also worked as a management consultant. In 2000, at the age of 21, he became the youngest member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia. Eight years ago, the now 42-year-old took over the office of party leader and led the Liberals back to the Bundestag in 2017.
Transport Minister: Volker Wissing (FDP)
- Born: 22. April 1970
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Place of birth: Landau
- Last function: General Secretary of the FDP
After graduating from high school in Bad Bergzabern in 1989, Volker Wissing studied law in Saarbrücken and Freiburg, and obtained his doctorate in Münster in 1997. Among other things, he worked as a public prosecutor and judge. From 2004 to 2013 he was a member of the Bundestag and was ultimately considered a financial expert. Since 2011 he has been chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate FDP. In 2016 he became Minister of Economics in the first Rhineland-Palatinate traffic light coalition. He has been General Secretary of the FDP since September 2020.
Justice Minister: Marco Buschmann (FDP)
- Born: August 1st, 1977
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Place of birth: Gelsenkirchen
- Last office: First parliamentary manager of the FDP parliamentary group
The doctor of law, who grew up in the Ruhr area, is considered a childhood friend and close confidante of party leader Christian Lindner. As Federal Managing Director from 2014, Marco Buschmann was instrumental in driving the organizational and programmatic realignment of the FDP forward. The Liberal has been in the Bundestag since 2009, with a four-year break.
Education and Research Minister: Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP)
- Born: 12. May 1968
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Place of birth: Frankfurt
- Last office: Parliamentary managing director of the FDP parliamentary group
The graduate economist from Taunus studied at the University of Mainz and worked as the manager of a research institute. Since 2017, a member of the Bundestag, the 53-year-old rose quickly to leadership positions in the FDP. During the election campaign, she campaigned for a system change in education policy.
Environment Minister: Steffi Lemke (Greens)
- Born: January 19, 1968
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Place of birth: Dessau
- Last office: Parl. Managing Director of the Bundestag parliamentary group
Steffi Lemke takes over a ministry of the environment that has handed over climate protection to the ministry of economics. Between 2002 and 2013, Lemke organized election campaigns and party conferences of the Greens as the federal political director. The graduate agricultural engineer, who has sat in the Bundestag for several terms, is particularly concerned with nature conservation.
Family Minister: Anne Spiegel (Greens)
- Born: December 15, 1980
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Place of birth: Leimen
- Last office: Climate Protection and Environment Minister in Rhineland-Palatinate
As a child, Spiegel wanted to become a penguin researcher. But nothing came of it. Growing up in Speyer and Ludwigshafen, she worked as a language trainer and has been a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament since 2011. In 2016 she became part of the state government for the first time as Minister of Integration and Family Affairs. The 40-year-old still lives in Speyer, but she wants to move to Berlin soon.
Agriculture Minister: Cem Özdemir (Greens)
- Born: December 21, 1965
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Place of birth: Bad Urach
- Last office: Chairman of the Bundestag Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure
The name Cem Özdemir has not yet been associated with agriculture. But there was no getting around the “Anatolian Swabian”, who is one of the most popular Green politicians and who won his constituency in Stuttgart in 2021. Domestic and foreign policy, Özdemir’s previous topics, were already occupied elsewhere.
Foreign Minister: Annalena Baerbock (Greens)
- Born: December 15, 1980
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Place of birth: Hanover
- Last office: Co-leader of the Green Party
A tougher approach towards authoritarian states – this is the message with which Annalena Baerbock takes up the position of Foreign Minister. She, who has no government experience, was the first person ever to be nominated for a candidate for chancellor by the Greens. Baerbock, who lives in Potsdam, has been a member of parliament since 2013. Her topics were climate, economy and the EU.
Climate and Economics Minister: Robert Habeck (Greens)
- Date of birth: September 2, 1969
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Place of birth: Lübeck
- Last office: Co-head of the Green Party
When the Greens put up a candidate for chancellor for the first time in their history in 2021, Robert Habeck had to let Annalena Baerbock go first. But after the Greens did less well than expected in the election, Habeck was allowed to choose his ministerial post. For a long time he made no secret of the fact that he would like to become finance minister – because he is the one who manages the money. Money that is necessary to advance climate protection. But Habeck’s plans failed because of the FDP. The green man carved himself a super economic ministry, which he expanded to include the topic of “climate”. He can contribute his experience as Schleswig-Holstein’s energy and environment minister. Habeck, who holds a doctorate in philosopher and author, was also Deputy Prime Minister in Kiel from 2012 to 2018.
The new cabinet, headed by Olaf Scholz as Chancellor, has some special features:
- The new government is bigger than before. The newly created Ministry of Construction has increased it from 16 to 17 members. Only four of them are already in government. And only one of these four remains in his post.
- That Average age of the Chancellor and his 16 heads of department is 50.4 years. This makes the new government younger than any of the four governments under Chancellor Angela Merkel when she took office. Her last government averaged 51.2 years old in 2018. The youngest ministers are Annalena Baerbock and Anne Spiegel von den Grünen at 40, the senior in the cabinet is the boss Scholz himself at 63.
- Of the Proportion of women is higher than ever at the beginning of an electoral term. Nevertheless, Scholz did not manage to form a government with at least as many women as men. Of the 17 cabinet members, nine are men and eight are women. “A cabinet that I run as Federal Chancellor has at least half of it made up of women,” Scholz had promised long before the general election. In order to get to parity, he does not count himself now. “Parity is important to me, which is why eight of the 16 ministers will be men and eight women,” he said at the presentation of the SPD ministerial team. “And of course there will then be a Federal Chancellor who is jointly responsible for everyone.”
- Are underrepresented in the new government that too native East Germans. Of the 17 cabinet members, only two grew up in East Germany: Steffi Lemke and Klara Geywitz. But there are also East Germans who have moved here, such as Scholz and Annalena Baerbock, nominated as Foreign Minister, who both live in Potsdam and have their constituency there.
- It should be with Cem Özdemir first time a minister with Turkish roots give.
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