Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder ensures ministerial chairbacks in the Bavarian cabinet. Key issues such as high-tech, social affairs and housing are to be reassigned.
Munich – A few days ago, the CSU took a small family photo at the carnival in Franconia. Colorfully disguised, his ministers crowded around Markus Söder. Kerstin Schreyer (construction, transport) and Carolina Trautner (social affairs), Bernd Sibler (science) and Melanie Huml (Europe) were particularly close to him. It was later joked in state politics that those people were gathering around the prime minister whose careers he could soon end.
In fact, things are getting serious now, for this very round. Söder is tackling the long-awaited cabinet reshuffle this week. He wants to improve his government team in several positions. Three goals: Only those who have complete control of their department should remain ministers; who is so prominent in his home district that he draws votes in the election; and who has what it takes throughout Germany to stand up to the federal ministers at the traffic lights.
Söder’s Bavaria cabinet in upheaval: These ministers are considered unstable candidates
Very few of Söder’s ministers have met high standards. He never says a bad word in public. All sorts of whispers around him: he is somewhat dissatisfied with Schreyer’s results in housing construction and grossly dissatisfied with their personnel policy in the ministry, as well as with Sibler’s and Trautner’s lack of broad impact. Huml is considered a maneuvering mass for regional proportional representation and quotas; likewise Secretary of State for the Interior Gerhard Eck, who will no longer stand for the 2023 election.
The ministers Joachim Herrmann (interior), Albert Füracker (finance) and Klaus Holetschek (health) are considered set. Söder’s list is not finished, only key points are there.
CSU boss Söder is working on the cabinet: secret preliminary talks started
On Monday (February 21) he started preliminary talks, the utmost secrecy: The first to be ordered into the state chancellery and inaugurated was parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer in the morning. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Kreuzer itself wobbles. But his deputies have to formally approve every new appointment and every dismissal in the state parliament. For Wednesday, Kreuzer immediately cleared the agenda of the parliamentary group meeting for the debate on a new cabinet. Before that come the talks with the shaky ministers and potential successors.
Who could move up is vague. Markus Blume is often mentioned. He could turn Sibler’s university into a high-tech ministry, make the whole government appear more modern and tech-savvy. And, implicitly, occupy topics from economy to education, where the free voters in the coalition make the ministers.
Minister-castling in Söder’s Bavaria cabinet: who moves up?
The long-time Deggendorf district administrator Christian Bernreiter, one of the most experienced CSU local politicians, whom even Chancellor Merkel once called up from time to time, is being discussed for Bau. (Practical: Sibler could run for district administrator in Deggendorf.) Ulrike Scharf, head of the Women’s Union from Erding, is also being traded. But one follow-up question is completely open: Who can inherit Blume as CSU General Secretary? It is necessary to organize a state election campaign, and more successfully than last time.
The reshuffle is tricky for Söder. Before the 2023 election, he went on the defensive. Since his reign, the CSU has had poor election results. His personal values have fallen, and those of the CSU are only slowly recovering. According to the party and parliamentary group, he must stabilize by this fall – he is not untouchable. So the new team has to fit. (cd/mic/hor)
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