Schroeder aide tapped as foreign minister
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-14 10:42

A close associate of outgoing Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was nominated Thursday as the country's next foreign minister, raising questions about how much Germany's conservative new leader will be able to mold foreign policy.

Frank Walter Steinmeier, Schroeder's chief of staff, was chosen by his party colleagues for the post, one of eight selections the Social Democrats have in the new Cabinet under a power-sharing deal with Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel.

In other key choices, Social Democrat Peer Steinbrueck, the former governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state, was nominated as finance minister to take charge of the country's strapped state budget, while Social Democratic Party chairman Franz Muentefering was selected for vice chancellor and labor minister.

Steinmeier, a 49-year-old lawyer, has been a low-profile but powerful figure in Schroeder's government. It was his job to hear then-U.S. Ambassador Dan Coats in a 2002 meeting express U.S. concerns about Schroeder's heated rhetoric against the possibility of war in Iraq.

The choice of a close Schroeder associate as foreign minister underscores the limits Merkel may face in putting her stamp on foreign policy. She has vowed to reinvigorate ties with the United States frayed by Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war, and to place less emphasis on Schroeder's close partnership with France.

Frank Walter Steinmeier, outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's chief of staff, is seen in Berlin in this March 13, 2003 file picture.[AP]

But she had to bargain away key ministries in order to get the Social Democrats to join in a coalition and make her Germany's first female chancellor.

In a Sept. 21 speech, Steinmeier said the government's "clear public positioning against the Iraq war" was one of its foreign policy achievements, along with the diplomatic effort by Germany, France and Britain to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

Schroeder has called for the new government to maintain his "independent" foreign policy and back the use of force against terrorism only as a last resort and with United Nations support, as with Germany's deployment of troops to Afghanistan.

"That was decisive for us when we said 'yes' to fighting the terrorists in Afghanistan ... and it must be decisive for us also in these coalition negotiations in that we say we don't want to see any German soldiers in Iraq," Schroeder told a union conference Wednesday. "That must remain so."

Schroeder's Social Democrats lost last month's parliamentary elections to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union. Merkel's preferred coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats failed to win a majority, however, forcing Germany's two largest parties to form a so-called "grand coalition."

The parties have agreed that the 16-member Cabinet will be divided equally between them. The new government must be approved by party conventions after negotiations, expected to last until Nov. 12. Lawmakers must then elect Merkel in a vote in the new parliament.

Other choices for the ministries allocated to the Social Democrats included Leipzig Mayor Wolfgang Tiefensee for the transport post and former Lower Saxony Governor Sigmar Gabriel for the environment.

Three current ministers — Brigitte Zypries at the Justice Ministry, Ulla Schmidt at the Health Ministry, and Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul at Development — will keep their posts.