{"id":57243,"date":"2025-04-28T10:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T10:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57243\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T10:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T10:49:10","slug":"merz-announces-first-german-cabinet-choices-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/57243\/","title":{"rendered":"Merz announces first German Cabinet choices \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merz has also created a new Ministry for Digitalization, choosing physicist and tech executive <strong>Karsten Wildberger<\/strong> to push overdue digital reforms in government.<\/p>\n<p>Cultural and media affairs will be steered by <strong>Wolfram Weimer<\/strong>, a well-known journalist and publisher. <strong>Christiane Schenderlein<\/strong>, a Bundestag member with experience in cultural policy, becomes state minister for sport and volunteer engagement.<\/p>\n<p>On European affairs, Merz appointed strong voices from his conservative Christian Democratic Union: <strong>Serap G\u00fcler<\/strong> joins the Foreign Ministry as state minister for international cooperation, while <strong>Gunther Krichbaum<\/strong>, a veteran on EU policy, takes the role of state minister for European affairs.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, <strong>Thorsten Frei<\/strong> \u2014 a key Merz ally and former CDU\/CSU parliamentary manager \u2014 will become head of the Chancellery, a powerful role akin to a chief of staff. Frei will be responsible for coordinating government operations and ensuring Cabinet discipline, a critical post as Merz seeks to push through his ambitious domestic and security agenda.<\/p>\n<p>The CDU\u2019s conservative Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is set to head three ministries.\u00a0<strong>Alexander Dobrindt<\/strong>, who led the CSU state group in parliament and was one of the key negotiators in coalition talks, will become the country\u2019s next interior minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dorothee B\u00e4r<\/strong>, one of the most prominent conservative female lawmakers, is set to lead the research and space ministry.\u00a0<strong>Alois Rainer,\u00a0<\/strong>a trained butcher, longtime mayor and finance expert, is tapped to become agriculture minister.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Merz has also created a new Ministry for Digitalization, choosing physicist and tech executive Karsten Wildberger to push&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[473,3677,30088,2266,35,2000,299,805,1945,1824,4348,2452,46,811,93,53,1263],"class_list":{"0":"post-57243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-digital","10":"tag-digitalization","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-foreign-policy","16":"tag-friedrich-merz","17":"tag-germany","18":"tag-healthcare","19":"tag-media","20":"tag-policy","21":"tag-security","22":"tag-sport","23":"tag-technology","24":"tag-transport"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114415204004762773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57243","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=57243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}