A new era in Germany begins: Social Democrat leader Olaf Schultz was sworn in as the new chancellor yesterday after receiving parliamentary approval – and officially replaced Angela Merkel, who retired after 16 years in office.
395 of the 707 members of the Bundestag who took part in the secret ballot yesterday morning voted in favor of Schultz’s appointment as chancellor, compared to 303 deputies who opposed and six abstained. An additional 29 deputies were not present due to illness. Immediately after the results were announced, Schultz received a storm of applause from those present, apart from members of the far-right Alternative for Germany, and received a bouquet of flowers while Merkel and the new chancellor’s parents sat in the podium. “I said ‘yes,'” Schultz tweeted.
After receiving the letter of appointment from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Schultz was sworn in as the ninth Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, he did not add to the wording of the oath the words “God help me so much” because he was cut off from the Protestant Church years ago.
Immediately afterwards, the Chancellor and members of the new government proceeded to the Presidential Palace, where Steinmeier presented the letters of appointment to the ministers. The president, a former Social Democrat leader, said voters had given the new coalition a “mandate to take bold steps towards change”, but urged the government to ensure that “even the weaker ones keep pace so that the people for whom change is a loss know they can gain new things”.
The new “Traffic Light” coalition, formed more than two months after the general election, is made up of three parties that have never cooperated with the federal government – the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats – after reaching an agreement that included compromises over ideological differences. Alongside Schultz, the government has only 16 ministers and has an equal distribution of portfolios between men and women, including Annalna Barbuk, the first woman to serve as foreign minister.
On the agenda of the ministers are already the next steps of the fight against the corona plague, against the background of the morbidity that continues to break records, with estimates that the coalition will also promote the obligation of vaccines. Another crisis is tensions between Russia and Ukraine, when the US administration clarified after the talks between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin that if the Russians invade the neighboring country, the activity of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline coming to Germany will be stopped.
The new Chancellor received congratulations on the occasion of his appointment. “We will write the next chapter together – for the French, for the Germans, for the Europeans,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. European Commission President Ursula von der Lane, a former defense minister in Merkel’s government, said she “expects trust-based cooperation for a strong Europe”.
On the other hand, Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Urban was quick to state that due to the new coalition’s support for immigration, gender identity and German influence on EU policy, Hungary and Germany “no longer stand side by side.
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