German Leader Reshuffles Top Posts     07/24 06:26

   

   BERLIN (AP) -- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz reshuffled top posts on 
Friday as he tries to boost the fortunes of his deeply unpopular government 
ahead of regional elections in which a far-right party could get its first 
state governor.

   Merz took office less than 15 months ago with pledges to reform and turn 
around Germany's economy, Europe's biggest, after years of stagnation. But that 
economic turnaround has been slow to start. And the middle-of-the-road 
coalition of Merz's center-right Union bloc and the center-left Social 
Democrats, two traditional rivals, has yet to persuade voters that it can 
produce results.

   That has resulted in Merz's popularity sinking to rock-bottom levels, while 
the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has gained support on the back 
of widespread discontent.

   Merz seizes an opportunity

   Merz took the opportunity to make a series of changes after a senior ally 
quit as the leader of his bloc's parliamentary group over personal conduct that 
undermined his credibility. Merz plans to put his chief of staff, Thorsten 
Frei, in that job.

   The German leader said Health Minister Nina Warken will take Frei's place at 
the chancellery, a post that is key to the smooth functioning of the 
government. She will be the first woman to take that job. Another close ally, 
Carsten Linnemann, the general secretary of Merz's Christian Democratic Union 
party, will become health minister.

   Merz said there will be further Cabinet changes, but didn't offer details. 
He said those decisions will take "a few days yet, and perhaps more time."

   "The personnel changes follow a clear line," he said. "We want a government 
that works with great vigor and pleasure and also represents the personal 
diversity of our society and politics. We are a reform government and want to 
continue showing that."

   Difficult regional elections are ahead

   The governing parties face three difficult regional elections in September. 
In the eastern region of Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6, AfD is hopeful of winning a 
majority that would give it control of a state government for the first time.

   After months in which voters were turned off by squabbling in the coalition, 
Merz's government recently embarked on big plans for potentially painful change 
-- including a proposed reform of the creaking pension system that would 
include raising the retirement age gradually, income tax cuts for low- and 
middle-income earners and an effort to slash red tape.

   "The government has found its rhythm, despite some criticism," Merz declared 
last week. "We have delivered, and we have recognized the dimension of the 
tasks we face."

   Ally quit over surrogacy

   Only days later, though, he faced a new distraction. Jens Spahn quit as 
leader of the Union's parliamentary group -- one of the most powerful positions 
in the coalition -- after it emerged that he and his husband had used the 
services of a surrogate mother in the U.S. to have a baby.

   Surrogacy isn't allowed in Germany. Merz's party opposes allowing it, a 
position that it reaffirmed at a convention in February, and Spahn himself had 
spoken out against it in the past. That prompted accusations of double 
standards.

   Frei will now take Spahn's job, a position he's widely considered better 
suited to than coordinating the chancellery. Frei was the Union's parliamentary 
chief whip under Merz when the center-right was in opposition.

   Warken takes his place at the chancellery after shepherding the first of the 
government's reforms, meant to curb rising costs in the German health insurance 
system, through parliament earlier this month.

   Merz said she has showed that "she can push through reforms against 
resistance," praised her as a tough negotiator and said that "she is also at 
home with the security policy issues" that are important at the chancellery.

   Linnemann, a conservative who lacks government experience, will take her 
place at the Health Ministry. Merz said that "we must maintain the course of 
reform" in health policy and that requires a "steadfast" minister.

   "Friedrich Merz wants to show that this coalition is capable of acting, that 
he as chancellor is capable of acting," Uwe Jun, a political science professor 
at the University of Trier, told Deutschlandfunk radio. "He wants to put it on 
a faster and stronger path now."

   Merz took no questions and didn't mention several German media reports that 
he also plans to replace Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder.

   Merz's coalition last year set up a huge fund to underpin an effort to 
upgrade worn-out transport infrastructure, but frustration remains -- for 
example with the unreliability of the national railway.

   AfD co-leader Alice Weidel argued that Merz had caused "yet more chaos" with 
his reshuffle and said in a post on X that the government being preoccupied 
with itself doesn't do justice to Germany's "many-faceted" problems.

   "Germany needs new elections," she wrote. The next national election isn't 
due until early 2029.