BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) confirmed on Monday that Boris Pistorius would remain defence minister as they announced their picks for the party’s new coalition with the conservatives that is due to be sworn in this week.
Pistorius, Germany’s most popular politician, is the only SPD minister who will keep his job in the new coalition after the SPD scored its worst ever result in the Feb. 23 national election.
The SPD had already said last week its co-leader Lars Klingbeil, 47, would take on the important finance ministry, while it nominated former Bundestag president Baerbel Bas, 57, on Monday to be labour minister.
The coalition is due to be sworn in on Tuesday with Friedrich Merz as new chancellor after his conservatives topped February’s elections.
The two parties aim to revive growth in Europe’s largest economy just as a global trade war sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping import tariffs threatens another recession year, as well as to ramp up defence spending amid strains in the transatlantic NATO alliance.
“As a consequence of the poor results in the federal election, we jointly announced a renewal in both personnel and policy direction. With our government team, we as the party leadership are now taking the next step,” party leader Lars Klingbeil said.
Pistorius, defence minister since January 2023, is popular for his direct style and firm stance on national security.
The 65-year-old has said Germany should be ready to face a war by 2029 due to increasing threats from Russia – a bold statement in a country scarred by the impact of its own military aggression in the last century.
Many SPD members had backed Pistorius as chancellor candidate for the SPD after the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-way coalition last November but he withdrew from the race when it became clear Scholz was not backing out.
Of the seven ministers the SPD has nominated, five are women, enabling it to achieve its goal of overall gender parity on the cabinet.
The former commissioner for east Germany Carsten Schneider, 49, will take on the newly created ministry for environment and climate protection and former state secretary for integration Reem Alabali-Radovan, 35, will become minister for development.
“Experienced figures from federal and state politics are joined by new faces who represent a generational shift within the SPD,” Klingbeil, co-leader Saskia Esken and General Secretary Matthias Miersch said in a statement.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh, Editing by Friederike Heine, Alexandra Hudson)
