To become the most powerful cultural politician in the country should be tempting for the Greens veteran.
(Photo: Odd Andersen / AFP)
Claudia Roth from the Greens will be the new Minister of State for Culture and successor to Monika Grütters (CDU). The Greens announced this late Thursday evening. For Roth, who has been Vice President of the Bundestag since 2013, the change means nominally relegation. The “Ministry of Culture” is not a full-fledged ministry. Roth will also not be a member of the federal cabinet. However, it should be tempting for the Greens veteran, who was born in 1955, to become the most powerful cultural politician in the country. Not only because it enables her to really shape things for the first time in her long career. But also because, although she never worked in cultural policy, she always dealt with cultural issues in the broader sense.
The news that the office of Minister of State for Culture would fall to the Greens and not to the SPD caused astonishment on Wednesday afternoon. Originally, the Hamburg Senator for Culture, Carsten Brosda, was scheduled for this post. Alongside Grütters, he has been by far the most prominent cultural politician in the country in recent years. But when the FDP’s transport ministry was slammed at the last minute, so it is said from circles of the new coalition, the Greens claimed the state ministry of culture for themselves to compensate.
Roth was born in Ulm and grew up in Augsburg. She studied theater studies, managed the band Clay stones shards and in 1985 became press spokeswoman for the first Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag. She later served in the European Parliament for nine years. One of the main themes of her work as a politician is her commitment to the rights of women and homosexuals, against discrimination and hate speech, of which she herself became a victim. She is also valued far beyond the party. As Vice President of the Bundestag, she cut an excellent figure with her binding but resolute manner. What is less clear is what it will change in German cultural policy after the eight luxuriant Grütters years. In any case, it should hardly be inferior to Grütters in terms of assertiveness.
The post of State Minister in the Foreign Ministry, who is responsible for foreign cultural policy, also fell to the Greens. It was not yet clear on Thursday who would get it. Michelle Müntefering (SPD), who held the office for the past four years, is left behind. It is therefore also questionable whether Andreas Görgen, the influential head of the cultural department in the Federal Foreign Office, will stay. He is the driving force behind the museum cooperation with Nigeria and has negotiated the agreement with the Nigerian side for the return of the Benin bronzes.