Merz Cabinet: These are the 17 new federal ministers

Friedrich Merz was elected Chancellor in the second round of voting in the German Bundestag. After the CDU leader failed in the first round, he was elected Chancellor with 325 yes votes in the Bundestag. His future cabinet will include 17 ministers – seven each from the CDU and SPD, and three from the CSU. Read here which politicians will be sitting at Friedrich Merz 's cabinet table in the Chancellery:

CDU Ministries: Foreign Office

Johann Wadephul (62): For the first time in almost 60 years, the CDU is again leading the Foreign Office. Merz, who also wants to play a key role in shaping foreign policy in the Chancellery, has given the position to a specialist politician from the Bundestag. Wadephul comes from Schleswig-Holstein and is currently deputy parliamentary group leader responsible for foreign and defense policy. He is considered to have extensive international connections and has already met with the respective foreign ministers in Paris, London, and Warsaw in recent weeks.

Economy and Energy

Katherina Reiche (51): CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann was long considered a likely minister here – but he declined and will remain in his post at party headquarters. Merz then chose Reiche, the former State Secretary for the Environment and Transport from Brandenburg. She has worked in business for the past ten years and, from 2015 to 2019, initially served as General Manager of the Association of Municipal Utilities (VKU). Since January 2000, she has headed the energy service provider Westenergie, a subsidiary of the E.ON Group.

Education, Family, Seniors, Women and Youth

Karin Prien (59): The deputy CDU chairwoman has served as Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein since 2017. Born in Amsterdam, Prien began her career as a lawyer specializing in commercial and insolvency law, but also became involved in local Hamburg politics early on. She was elected to the Hamburg City Parliament in 2011 before moving to Schleswig-Holstein. In 2021, she was also responsible for education in the "future team" of Armin Laschet, the CDU's failed candidate for chancellor.

Health

Nina Warken (45): The lawyer from Baden-Württemberg was one of the surprises among the CDU cabinet members. Virtually no one had her on their radar, and she is not considered a dedicated health policy expert. Warken primarily dealt with legal issues in parliament. Since 2021, she has also been one of the parliamentary managers of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and Secretary General of the CDU in Baden-Württemberg since 2023. From 2022, she was a member of the CDU's expert committee on security.

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Patrick Schnieder (57): The CDU politician has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009 as a directly elected representative for the Bitburg constituency in the Eifel region of Rhineland-Palatinate. Since 2018, the lawyer has been one of the parliamentary managers of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. Schnieder cites his work on behalf of rural areas and an efficient road and rail infrastructure as his main priorities.

Digitalization and state modernization

Karsten Wildberger (55): Merz announced early on that he wanted to appoint a business expert to the newly created portfolio. The former head of the holding company for electronics retailers MediaMarkt and Saturn is now set to take over the position. Wildberger, who holds a doctorate in physics, was a member of the board of the holding company of the energy group E.ON from 2016 to 2021 and previously held management positions at the telecom groups Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, among others.

Head of the Federal Chancellery

Thorsten Frei (51): The Chancellery is traditionally headed by a federal minister without a portfolio of his own. Frei, originally from Baden-Württemberg , previously served as First Parliamentary Secretary of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. He acted as an important link between the CDU party leadership and the parliamentary group's members. The lawyer has long been considered Merz's right-hand man and is now tasked with ensuring the smoothest possible cooperation within the new government.

CSU ministries

Alexander Dobrindt (54): The former head of the CSU's parliamentary group in the Bundestag had long been considered a foregone conclusion for the position, where he would implement the "migration turnaround" demanded by the CDU/CSU. Dobrindt served as CSU general secretary from 2009 to 2013, then as Federal Minister of Transport for four years. As CSU parliamentary group leader, he was considered a key factor in the relatively smooth cooperation between CSU leader Markus Söder and Merz.

Research, technology and space travel

Dorothee Bär (47): The deputy CSU chairwoman already served as Minister of State for Digital Affairs in CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet from 2018 to 2021. Bär first entered the Bundestag in 2002, along with many other young Christian Social Democrats, during Edmund Stoiber's candidacy for chancellor. In the federal election in February, she achieved the highest result in Germany in her constituency of Bad Kissingen.

Food, agriculture and home

Alois Rainer (60): Following the withdrawal of the initially designated Bavarian Farmers' President, Günther Felßner, Lower Bavaria's Alois Rainer is now in the running. The master butcher has been a member of the Bundestag since 2013 – and even before taking office, he immediately rejected higher meat taxes. His father, of the same name, was a member of the Bundestag for 18 years, and his sister is the former Federal Minister of Construction and Health, Gerda Hasselfeldt.

SPD MinistriesFinance

Lars Klingbeil (47): The SPD leader will assume the powerful finance portfolio and also become vice chancellor. Despite the SPD's historically worst result in the federal election, Klingbeil has become a central figure in the party since February and has also secured the parliamentary group chairmanship. The Lower Saxon will now relinquish this position upon joining the cabinet. His successor is to be SPD General Secretary Matthias Miersch.

defense

Boris Pistorius (65): He is the most popular federal politician and was also considered the SPD's candidate for chancellor before the election. The long-time Lower Saxony Interior Minister took over the Defense Ministry at the beginning of 2023. Against the backdrop of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, Pistorius set about resolutely making the Bundeswehr " war-ready " again—a term that not everyone in the SPD liked.

Work and Social Affairs

Bärbel Bas (57): The former President of the Bundestag leads the department with the largest budget in the federal budget – and will thus play a key role for the Social Democrats in defending the interests of workers. Bas is familiar with labor and social issues: She served for many years on the works council in Duisburg. Bas was born and raised in the Ruhr city, where she has also won five direct seats in the Bundestag.

Justice and Consumer Protection

Stefanie Hubig (56): The former Minister of Education of Rhineland-Palatinate holds a doctorate in law and worked as a judge and public prosecutor in Bavaria. She is already well-known at the Federal Ministry of Justice: In early 2014, Hubig, born in Frankfurt am Main, was appointed State Secretary by then-SPD Minister Heiko Maas. She had already worked there as a consultant and later as head of department since 2000.

Environment, climate protection, nature conservation and nuclear safety

Carsten Schneider (49): The environment and climate protection have not been among Schneider's core issues to date. However, the former Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe was responsible for all policy areas. According to media reports, the Erfurt native could bring a proven expert, the former State Secretary for Development, Jochen Flasbarth, back to the Ministry of the Environment. This Ministry will also once again assume responsibility for climate protection, which was located in the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Foreign Affairs under the previous government.

Economic cooperation and development

Reem Alabali-Radovan (35): A native of Moscow with Iraqi roots, she served as Commissioner Against Racism and Minister of State for Migration, Refugees and Integration in the outgoing German government. She has been a member of the SPD for four years. In 2021, she was elected to the Bundestag on her first attempt as a direct candidate for her Schwerin constituency. Three and a half years later, she finished only third behind the AfD and CDU candidates and was re-elected to the Bundestag via the state list.

Housing, urban development and construction

Verena Hubertz (37): The topics of construction and housing were already part of Hubertz's area of ​​responsibility during the last legislative period as deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag. She also served as a deputy member of the Building Committee. In parliament, she contributed to legislative initiatives on sustainable construction, the social design of the Heating Act, and the specifications for municipal heating planning. The Rhineland-Palatinate native is also considered an expert in business and digital issues.