“Super ministry” for economy and finances could help CDU in coalition talks

Germany’s economy ministry (BMWi) has often seen its scope of responsibility altered by government coalition agreements, and this time is no different, Dorothea Siems writes on Welt Online. The ministry could  become a bargaining chip in upcoming coalition talks between the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, the free-market FDP and the environmentalist Green Party, she says. If Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU retakes the ministry, currently held by the outgoing Social Democrats (SPD), “it will likely work towards including responsibility for digitalisation in addition to the Energiewende,” making it a “super ministry” with multiple areas of competency, she says. Previously headed by the SPD’s Sigmar Gabriel, the BMWi had become “the planned economy authority for the energy transition,” Siems says. She adds that likely CDU candidates, chief of the Chancellery Peter Altmaier and EU budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger, would stand for more market-based principles.

Read the article in German here.