German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reshuffled top posts in his cabinet.
Merz took the opportunity to make a series of changes after a senior ally quit as the leader of his bloc’s parliamentary group over personal conduct that undermined his credibility.
Jens Spahn quit as leader of the Union’s parliamentary group, one of the most powerful positions in the coalition, after it emerged that he and his husband had used the services of a surrogate mother in the U.S. to have a baby.
Surrogacy isn’t allowed in Germany. Merz’s party opposes allowing it, a position that it reaffirmed at a convention in February, and Spahn himself had spoken out against it in the past. As such, his action prompted accusations of double standards.
Merz put his chief of staff, Thorsten Frei, in Spahn’s job, a position he’s widely considered better suited to than coordinating the chancellery. Frei was the Union’s parliamentary chief whip under Merz when the center-right was in opposition.
The German leader announced that Health Minister Nina Warken will take Frei’s place at the chancellery, a post that is key to the smooth functioning of the government. She will be the first woman to take that job. Warken takes his place at the chancellery after shepherding the first of the government’s reforms, meant to curb rising costs in the German health insurance system, through parliament earlier this month.
Merz said that she has showed that “she can push through reforms against resistance,” praised her as a tough negotiator and said that “she is also at home with the security policy issues” that are important at the chancellery.
Another close ally, Carsten Linnemann, the General Secretary of Merz’s Christian Democratic Union party, will become Health Minister, taking Warken’s place at the Health Ministry. Merz said that “we must maintain the course of reform” in health policy and that requires a “steadfast” Minister.
“The personnel changes follow a clear line. We want a government that works with great vigor and pleasure and also represents the personal diversity of our society and politics. We are a reform government and want to continue showing that.”
Frederick Merz
Merz said that there will be further Cabinet changes, but didn’t offer details. He said those decisions will take “a few days yet, and perhaps more time.”
AfD Co-leader Criticises Merz’s Cabinet Reshuffle
AfD Co-leader Alice Weidel argued that Merz had caused “yet more chaos” with his reshuffle and said in a post on X that the government being preoccupied with itself doesn’t do justice to Germany’s “many-faceted” problems.
She added that Germany needs new elections. The next national election isn’t due until early 2029.
The reshuffle comes amid the German Chancellor’s efforts to boost the fortunes of his deeply unpopular government ahead of regional elections in which a far-right party could get its first state Governor.
Merz took office less than 15 months ago with pledges to reform and turn around Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest, after years of stagnation. However, that economic turnaround has been slow to start and the middle-of-the-road coalition of Merz’s center-right Union bloc and the center-left Social Democrats, two traditional rivals, has yet to persuade voters that it can produce results.
That has resulted in Merz’s popularity sinking to rock-bottom levels, while the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has gained support on the back of widespread discontent.
The governing parties face three difficult regional elections in September. In the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6, AfD is hopeful of winning a majority that would give it control of a state government for the first time. After months in which voters were turned off by squabbling in the coalition, Merz’s government recently embarked on big plans for potentially painful change — including a proposed reform of the creaking pension system that would include raising the retirement age gradually, income tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners and an effort to slash red tape.
Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which placed second in national elections last year, derided the reform package. She called the measures an “even more left-wing redistribution, and minimal compromises that don’t deserve to be called ‘reforms’.”
She added that the “fact that this is being sold as a ‘breakthrough’ shows only one thing: this government’s complete inability to reform.”
Nonetheless, Merz appealed to all Germans to support the package.
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