Germany’s movers and shakers

A look at Chancellor Angela Merkel and the team that will lead the presidency of the European Union during the next six months.

Angela Merkel, the chancellor

German diplomats are trying to play down what Berlin can achieve during its six-month tenure of the EU presidency, not least because the name of the next French president will not be known until around ten days before the June European Council. Until then, the uncertainty in France will necessitate a lot of treading water on issues such as the EU constitution, postal liberalisation and possible energy reform. What gives the German presidency a distinct chance of success despite the adverse political environment is the leadership of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

While it is unclear who the next president of France will be and it is certain that Tony Blair will bow out as UK prime minister during 2007, Merkel’s position is assured, for at least 18 months. As Germany’s ambassador Wilhelm Schönfelder said last week, she has broad political support because the ruling coalition includes both the centre-right and the Social Democrats. He also praised her as a "real European" who is "very committed to the future of Europe". "When she wants results, she gets them," he said. Merkel helped get a deal on the 2007-13 budget last December when she stumped up extra German cash to placate Poland and other new member states.

Born in 1954, her background growing up in communist East Germany makes her more sceptical towards Russia and inclined to take a more ethically informed view than her SPD predecessor Gerhard Schröder, who praised President Vladimir Putin as a "genuine democrat". She is good at taking advice and has surrounded herself with some of the finest diplomats and EU affairs experts the German diplomatic corps has produced. The cliché about the secret to her political success is that whenever fellow politicians have underestimated her she has been able to surprise them. If anyone has a chance of relaunching the stalled constitution it is Merkel and her team, despite attempts to lower expectations.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister

"The eyes of the world will be on us," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier recently told members of the Bundestag - the German parliament’s lower house.

He said that Germany had a "considerable international responsi-bility" chairing the both the EU presidency and, for the whole of 2007, the G8.

When Steinmeier discusses next year’s dual presidencies, his background as a political strategist is apparent.

For many years his political master was Gerhard Schröder, whom Steinmeier steered through the offices of power in Saxony and, eventually, of Germany’s federal government.

From 1999 until 2005 he was head of Schröder’s federal chancellery, acting as chief adviser and chief political strategist.

When Schröder’s Social Democrat Party lost out in 2005 to the Christian Democrats, led by Angela Merkel, and a grand coalition was put together, 50-year-old Steinmeier was lined up for the post of foreign minister. There is a German tradition of appointing the foreign minister from the ranks of the minor partner in the country’s ruling coalition, but even his political adversaries recognise his skill. Michael Glos, the Bavarian centre-right politician who is now economics minister, said: "I find him really efficient and I think he’s perfect for every post."

Steinmeier is now using his domestic political acumen, along with the presidencies of the EU and the G8, as a strategic opportunity to remake Germany’s image on the world stage - perhaps with one eye on her becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

He has called for Ger-many to have influence on a par with France and the UK and has railed against cuts in foreign ministry staff and the establishment of what he calls "laptop embassies" with small staff and no influence.

Still, he is likely to play his hand cautiously, working away discreetly on the problems that come up during the presidency.

"Modesty is almost certainly a mark of intelligent diplomacy," he recently remarked.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the interior minister

Wolfgang Schäuble is no stranger to the job of being Germany’s interior minister. He held the portfolio in 1989-91 when Helmut Kohl was chancellor. During this time he was also chairman of the Christian Democrats and led negotiations on the reunification of Germany in 1990. A close confidante of Kohl, Schäuble seemed destined at one point to succeed him as chancellor but the party’s defeat in the 1998 election ruled him out. He made a bid to become president of the federal republic in March 2004 but was opposed by, among others, Angela Merkel, who is now the chancellor. The opposition goes back to 2000 when the party was embroiled in a scandal over cash donations from an arms dealer. Schäuble was implicated and was forced to resign as party chairman and the issue has never fully gone away.

Nevertheless, his experience and high standing in the party made him an obvious candidate for the job of interior minister when the Christian Democrats regained power last year. The 64-year-old from Freiburg is considered to be a conservative. He is tough on law and order issues and remains popular, not least because of the determination he has shown in staying on in politics after an assassination attempt in October 1990, which left him paralysed from the waist down. Schäuble is not afraid to speak his mind and was one of the few German politicians, openly to support the US during its invasion of Iraq in 2003. He is committed to further European integration and ruffled feathers in 1994 when he and fellow Christian Democrat Karl Lamers proposed the idea of a core Europe with France, Germany and the Benelux countries.

Michael Glos, the economics minister

Germany is unusual among the advanced economies in splitting the economic policy portfolio between a finance minister and economics minister. But it is not just institutional structures that will ensure it will be the finance ministry, alongside the Bundesbank, which will play the predominant international role during the German presidency.

Michael Glos, the 63-year-old economics minister, did not want the economics portfolio at all. He would have been much happier leading his party, the Bavarian conservatives of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Christian Democrat’s centre-right coalition partner, in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house, where he has served since 1976.

A master party political tactician, Glos has his roots in rural Germany. He was born in the village of Bruennau, the son of a miller. On his father’s death he had to take over the family business and he can be expected to stress the importance of small businesses to the European economy. His critics say that, although a staunch supporter of Germany’s interests (and of Chancellor Angela Merkel) he has struggled to master the economics ministry brief. Earlier this year he revamped his staff to strengthen both his own position and that of his economics ministry. On the big policy issues, EU competitiveness, energy and economic reform, Glos is likely to continue to be most valuable as somebody who has his finger on the national pulse.

Peer Steinbrück, the finance minister

At first glance, Peer Steinbrück might appear to be a quintessential party hack. He joined the centre-left SPD in 1969 and moved into government service as soon as he left university in 1974. Until he was appointed Germany’s finance minister last year, he had held a series of mainly state-level posts covering environmental and economic issues.

But Steinbrück is more the thoughtful rebel than the time-serving loyalist. This is a man who does not baulk at confronting his peers with blunt realities.

Pushing through his controversial decision to increase Germany’s VAT rate from January, Steinbrück did not mince his words. "It is a completely insane notion to think I can cut another €20 billion out of the budget," he remarked. He later bluntly warned his parliamentary colleagues that there was still plenty of work to do to stabilise Germany’s finances. "Before we let all the champagne corks pop, we need to see if there is something in the bottle," he quipped.

Steinbrück grew up in Hamburg and studied economics and sociology in Kiel, both ports for the cold North and Baltic seas which already in the 1960s and 1970s had had to confront and adapt to global economic change - the introduction of container shipping and the Asian challenge to Europe’s shipbuilding industry. From 1998, as economics, and then finance, minister for North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s industrial heartland, his reformist instincts will have been reinforced.

Now, as chairman of the Ecofin Council and with a prominent role in the Eurogroup and the G7, he will find himself arguing for reform on a much bigger stage. This could be a challenge for a man who is so new to the international policymaking network.

Sigmar Gabriel, the environment minister

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel is an ambitious man.

Speaking at a UN climate change conference in Nairobi last month, the former university lecturer said Europe should commit itself to a 30% reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2020 - compared to an agreed 8% by 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.

Some say this ambition affects everything that he does. Environment minister since last November, he is widely tipped for even greater things. A member of the German Social Democratic Party (SDP) from the age of 18, he has impressed observers with his skill as a public speaker and readiness to play a leading role in international meetings like the Nairobi conference.

His politics have been compared to those of the UK’s New Labour Party, which replaced traditional socialist politics in the UK during the 1990s.

So far the 47-year-old’s rise up the political ladder has been steady. He was elected to the parliament of Lower Saxony in 1990 and made prime minister for the region nine years later. In 2005 he was picked to replace Jürgen Tritten as minister for ‘environment, nature conservation and nuclear safety’, to give the job its full title.

Unlike Tritten, a Green Party politician and dyed-in-the-wool environmentalist, Gabriel is also comfortable working with big business. As prime minister in Lower Saxony, his job automatically included a role on the advisory board of carmaker Volkswagen.

But he shares Tritten’s absolute opposition to nuclear power, describing it as a "massive risk" soon after taking power. He is credited with encouraging German Chancellor Angela Merkel to continue with a national nuclear phase-out at a time when many EU member states were beginning to see nuclear as the environmentally friendly alternative to coal and oil.

Gabriel’s critics say that his green ambitions do not always cross over into domestic action. At the same time that he was suggesting a 30% climate change commitment, he faced criticism from the European Commission for allocating too many CO2 emission permits to industry in a proposed German national allocation plan for emissions trading. He will now have a chance to prove his environmental credentials on the EU stage.

A look at Chancellor Angela Merkel and the team that will lead the presidency of the European Union during the next six months.