BERLIN – Today in Germany the Merkel era ends with the election of the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz: the ceremony began this morning at 9 in the Bundestag and will close in the afternoon with the oath. The Bundestag has appointed the Chancellor-designate Scholz, exponent of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), Minister of Finance of Germany since 2017. A long applause with ovation greeted Angela Merkel at the beginning of the parliamentary session.
In the middle of the morning the new Chancellor will move away from the president Frank Walter Steinmeier to the castle of Bellevue to receive the appointment. And at 12 he will return to Parliament for the oath to the new federal government, formed by the SPD, the Greens and the Liberal Democratic Party (Fdp).
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The executive will be divided into 16 ministries, of which seven entrusted to the Social Democrats, five to the environmentalists and four to the Liberal Democrats. In particular, the SPD will lead the Interior and Defense, respectively with Nancy Faeser e Christine Lambrecht, former holder of Justice in the outgoing federal government.
He is confirmed at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs Hubertus Heil, while the health department is taken over by Karl Lauterbach, head of the Spd for health policies. Construction is entrusted to Klara Geywitz, while the Minister of the Environment, Svenja Schulze, switch to Economic Cooperation and Development. The Undersecretary for Finance with responsibility for financial and economic issues as well as for international financial and monetary policy, Wolfgang Schmidt, Scholz’s close confidant, assumes the post of chief of staff of the Federal Chancellery and Minister for Special Affairs.
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