With the appointment of the ministers of the SPD on Monday, Olaf Scholz’s traffic light cabinet is complete – without representatives from Bavaria in the front row. Most recently there had been debates about heads of department with a migration background and from East Germany, but not about other regional distribution. How do the state parties see this void? Broadcast tenor: not exactly with great concern. This came promptly from the CSU on Monday.
SPD country chief Ronja Endres is relaxed, one has “no grudge”. Although the regional association has always been one of the largest members, they are still “very, very satisfied” with the selection: Scholz has clearly relied on “competence” and “many years of experience”. Didn’t the Bayern-SPD’s personnel board show that? But, replies Endres, you have “excellent people” – the advantage is that they can now do everything they can for Bayern. Sabine Dittmar from Lower Franconia was acted as Minister of Health, while Bärbel Kofler from Upper Bavaria was responsible for the development department. Nothing came of either. One is now hoping for state secretaries, says Endres; their tableau was not yet complete at the SPD.
Martin Hagen can’t help throwing in
Not so with the Greens and the FDP. The Greens sent three strong women from Bavaria into the traffic light government, says parliamentary group leader Katharina Schulze. “This means that Bavarian expertise is also strongly represented.” This is Claudia Roth, she will be Minister of State for Culture and Media (with the rank of State Secretary). Ekin Deligöz from Neu-Ulm is designated parliamentary state secretary in the family, Manuela Rottmann from Lower Franconia is in the agriculture ministry. State secretaries in the federal government, however, do not belong to the cabinet, they have no voting rights. The previous parliamentary group leader Anton Hofreiter from Sauerlach, contrary to expectations, was not given a seat in the cabinet.
The FDP also refers to its two State Secretaries: Katja Hessel in the Federal Ministry of Finance, she was State Secretary in the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs from 2008 to 2013. Thomas Sattelberger stands for education and research. The former manager and Dax board member Sattelberger, 72, later switched to politics. FDP leader Martin Hagen cannot resist this objection to the debate about the ministerial ranks without Bavaria: “I think most Bavarians are very happy that top performers like Andreas Scheuer are no longer in the ministerial office.”
CSU General Secretary Markus Blume complains: “Bavaria is only on the bench in the Scholz cabinet.” Obviously the regional associations of the SPD, Greens and FDP “have nothing to report in Berlin”, the quality of the staff is probably not enough. The CSU remains “the only strong Bavarian voice at the federal level”. For the past 16 years, the Bavarian anchoring in the cabinet was already secured by the CSU, in the second red-green government of Gerhard Schröder, ex-SPD country chief Renate Schmidt worked. The first Schröder cabinet, from 1998 to 2002, was the last so far without a minister from Bavaria.