Angela Merkel’s 16-year tenure as Germany’s chancellor formally ended Wednesday with the 67-year-old fist-bumping successor Olaf Scholz following the official handover ceremony.
Earlier Wednesday, Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, voted 395-303 with six abstentions to make Scholz the country’s ninth post-World War II leader. Merkel, no longer a member, watched from the spectator gallery and received a standing ovation from lawmakers.
Scholz, 63, takes office as the head of a three-party coalition that netted a total of 416 Bundestag seats in September’s parliamentary elections. A former mayor of Hamburg, Scholz had served as Germany’s vice chancellor and finance minister since 2018.
The three parties — Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats, the environmentalist Greens, and the centrist Free Democrats — have cast themselves as a progressive alliance that will bring new energy to the country after Merkel’s near-record time in office.
However, Scholz must first contend with growing concerns about the Omicron variant of COVID-19, which has led Germany to implement tough new restrictions largely targeting unvaccinated people — as well as consider a general vaccine mandate.
Merkel spent much of her final days in office urging all Germans to get vaccinated.
“Get vaccinated, no matter whether it’s a first vaccination or a booster,” she said in one weekly video message. “Every vaccination helps.”
Approximately 104,000 Germans have succumbed to COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.
“Every one of them leaves behind families or friends, stunned, speechless and helpless,” Merkel said. “This is so bitter because it is avoidable. With the effective and safe vaccines, we have the key to this in our hands.”
Top posts in Scholz’s government will be divided among the coalition parties, with the Social Democrats taking the interior, defense and health ministries; the Greens receiving the foreign, environment, and economy and climate ministries; and the Free Democrats controlling the finance, education, and justice ministries
Some of the new policies the government wishes to implement include the legalization of cannabis, easing the path for dual citizenship, increasing the minimum wage, and phasing out coal energy by 2030.
The government is also looking to curb high rent prices and improve cellphone and internet networks.
Scholz, who has promised to support a strong European Union and the trans-Atlantic alliance, is expected to make his first foreign trip to Paris on Friday. He will reportedly travel to Brussels the same day to meet with EU and NATO leaders.
With Post wires
