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Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz has picked an energy sector executive as his economy minister as he unveiled his party’s cabinet picks a week before taking office.
The leader of the Christian Democrats, who won elections in February and signed a coalition deal with Social Democrats (SPD) earlier this month, has nominated Katherina Reiche, the head of Westenergie, a unit of German energy group Eon, to lead the economy ministry, according to a statement on Monday.
Johann Wadephul, a senior CDU MP and close ally, will be appointed foreign minister, while Thorsten Frei, Merz’s number two in parliament, is to become his top aide as head of the Chancellery.
The early line-up announcement highlights the sense of urgency among Merz’s team as Europe’s largest economy faces daunting economic and geopolitical challenges. US trade tariffs could tip the export-oriented nation into contraction this year. This would come after three years of stagnation as Germany grapples with high energy costs and fierce competition in export markets from Chinese rivals.
Berlin is also going through a foreign policy upheaval as Washington under Donald Trump seeks to reduce its military commitment to Europe, a pillar of Germany’s postwar renaissance.
The multipronged challenges have led Merz to loosen the country’s constitutional debt limit and vote through a €1tn spending package to equip the Bundeswehr and modernise ageing infrastructure.
Merz’s CDU is holding a party conference on Monday to rubber stamp the coalition deal he has concluded with the SPD. But the Social Democrats are not expected to disclose their own ministerial picks until after a members’ vote on the coalition agreement, whose results are due on Wednesday.
The CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, will hold 10 out of a total of 17 ministerial posts. The SPD’s portfolios include defence and finance.
If SPD members back the government deal, Merz will then be voted as chancellor by the Bundestag on May 6.
Reiche’s appointment underlines how energy will be at the heart of Merz’s economic agenda. A former CDU MP, Reiche is at present the chief executive of German energy and water supplier Westenergie, which is majority owned by Eon.
After being elected to parliament for the first time at the age of 25 in 1998, she left politics in 2015 to head a utilities trade association. She has a degree in chemistry and is from the eastern German state of Brandenburg.
Wadephul, an MP from the northernmost federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, has been in charge of foreign affairs in parliament. He will be the first foreign minister hailing from the chancellor’s party since the 1960s, part of efforts by Merz to lead a more coherent approach on the global stage.
