SPD, Greens and Liberals determined to progress, reforms and changes in all areas
Germany embarks on a new political experiment. With the official election and appointment of Olaf Scholz as Chancellor, not only does the era of Angela Merkel, the tireless international negotiator and bullfighter of countless crises, end, but a new stage for the country begins with the conjunction of an unprecedented coalition of Social Democrats (SPD). ), Greens and Liberals (FDP). An alliance that, among other things, has set out to make great strides in the European idea.
While Merkel held back the initiatives of French President Emmanuel Macron to develop the European Union, Scholz and his team openly back them. His coalition agreement, a 177-page document, includes Macron’s idea of a European sovereignty and the proposal to progress towards a United States of Europe, granting more powers to the Strasbourg parliament, seeking a way to have a continental government and even proposing cross-border voting for its citizens.
But “a lot of progress, a lot of reforms and a lot of changes” have also been proposed in matters of climate protection, digitization, world trade and migration, among other things, as Federal President Frank Walter Steinmeier commented in his speech after taking the oath of office. Scholz and the 16 ministers of his new cabinet, a joint team of eight women and eight men. All came in official cars to collect their appointments except the new Minister of Agriculture, the ecologist of Turkish origin Cem Özdemir, who pedals his bicycle until he reached the Bellevue Palace.
Official election
The day began with the plenary session of the Bundestag for the election of Scholz and a closed ovation, with the deputies of all the parties standing to bid farewell to Angela Merkel, who attended the procedure in the guest gallery, at the beginning of the end of his political career. All but the parliamentarians of the marginalized and ultra-nationalist Alternative for Germany who remained impassive in their seats.
Scholz was elected by a large majority of 395 deputies out of the 707 present. 369 were enough for him. 303 voted against, 6 abstained and 3 votes were invalid. But not all the parliamentarians of the Ampel Koalition, the ‘traffic light coalition’ for the colors that characterize each of the tripartite formations and which has a total of 416 terms, backed the Social Democratic leader. Although some were absent due to illness, the accounts say that at least 15 did not vote in their favor. Verifying who it is is impossible, as is knowing if any opposition deputy voted in his favor, since the election was secret.
“I accept the election,” was Scholz’s brief reply when asked by the president of the Bundestag, the also Social Democrat, Bärbel Bas. The going back and forth to the presidential palace then began. Scholz first to collect his appointment from Steinmeier and then swear before the Bundestag and then accompanied by his cabinet to carry out the same procedure.
His government
The two co-presidents of Los Verdes stand out in his team, Robert Habeck, who assumes the Vice Chancellery and the Ministry of Economy and Climate Protection, and Annalena Baerbock, the youngest Foreign Minister in the country’s history. The president of the Liberal Party, Christian Lindner, will be the successor of Scholz himself at the head of the powerful Ministry of Finance. They all add the responsibility of the government in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, when the pandemic hits southern and eastern Germany and causes more than 500 deaths a day.
At a time when many hospitals see the capacities of their intensive care stations overwhelmed, with the Luftwaffe, the German air force, transporting patients across the country in medicalized planes and while the protests of the skeptics become more radical and violent. of the disease and opposed to a vaccination that will end up becoming mandatory next year.
Olaf Scholz will fulfill his first major international commitment this Thursday with his virtual attendance at the ‘Democratic Summit’ that will be held digitally with the attendance of a hundred world leaders for two days at the initiative of the President of the United States, Joe Biden. His first official trip will be to Paris to meet and have lunch this Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, an obligatory and traditional visit of German heads of government when they take office. The new foreign minister, the green Annalena Baerbock, will be launched earlier. The first head of German diplomacy in history will travel tonight to Paris and later to Brussels and Warsaw to appear before the French and Polish governments, as well as before the European Commission. On Saturday he will participate in the G7 Foreign Minister meeting in Liverpool.
Transfer of powers
Merkel received Scholz in the afternoon at the Chancellery for the forced transfer of powers. Both maintain a very cordial relationship, since the new head of government has been head of Finance in the last cabinet of the conservative statesman. The now ex-chancellor, the first in the country’s history to voluntarily relinquish power and not be defeated in an election, has ruled Germany for more than 16 years, exactly 5,860 days. He is only 10 days away from matching the brand at the head of the German government of his former political godfather, the also Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl.
For Merkel, a well-deserved phase of tranquility is now beginning. This summer he explained in an interview that he must first reflect on his interests for the future and his regained freedom. “Then I will try to read a little, until my eyes close because of how tired I am and then I will sleep a little and we will see where I start to appear”, then commented the veteran statesman, for whom many ask for a position of international responsibility.
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