{"id":1098603,"date":"2026-07-19T11:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T11:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1098603\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T11:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T11:14:15","slug":"germanys-merz-not-ruling-out-reshuffle-after-forcing-out-key-ally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1098603\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany&#8217;s Merz not ruling out reshuffle after forcing out key ally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">German Chancellor Friedrich Merz indicated on Sunday he could consider a cabinet reshuffle after forcing key ally Jens Spahn out as head of his conservative alliance in parliament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It could be an opportunity to rethink the composition of the federal government,&#8221; Merz told national public broadcaster ZDF. He stressed that he was speaking hypothetically.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Furore erupted over Spahn&#8217;s decision to have a child via a surrogate mother in the United States, as surrogacy is banned in Germany. Both Merz and Spahn are members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which explicitly rejects surrogacy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Spahn previously served as CDU health minister. He and his husband, Daniel Funke, announced on Wednesday that they had become parents through surrogacy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Merz declined to comment when asked whether Thorsten Frei, head of the chancellery, could replace Spahn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Speculation over possible appointments is rife within the CDU and its Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The two parties form a combined group in the Bundestag, which Spahn headed until stepping down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Other names being mentioned as possible successors include CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU and Health Minister Nina Warken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"German Chancellor Friedrich Merz indicated on Sunday he could consider a cabinet reshuffle after forcing key ally Jens&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1098604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5310],"tags":[12269,29134,29136,2000,299,1945,1824,17860,192516],"class_list":["post-1098603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-bundestag","tag-christian-democratic-union","tag-christian-social-union","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-jens-spahn","tag-parliamentary-group"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116946355027185998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1098604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}