Monday, December 6th, 2021
From admonisher to minister
Scholz makes Lauterbach Minister of Health
The cabinet of the new federal government has a surprise in store: The SPD occupies the health ministry with its most famous but also most controversial specialist – Karl Lauterbach.
The Bundestag member Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is to become the new Federal Minister of Health. The SPD announced in Berlin. As the last of the three parties in the planned Ampel coalition, the SPD named its ministers. The 58-year-old health expert Lauterbach is to take over from the outgoing incumbent Jens Spahn (CDU) in the middle of the high phase of the fourth corona wave. Most citizens would have wished that the next health minister would be a specialist and that his name was Karl Lauterbach, said Scholz. “He will.”
At the presentation of the designated ministers, Lauterbach thanked the party for the confidence in the party and the support from the population. The pandemic will last longer than many think, said Lauterbach, but “we will win the battle with the pandemic”. Lauterbach announced that it would also strengthen the health system and make it more robust. “With us there will be no cutbacks in health care benefits.” People will be better equipped for further pandemics.
The SPD expert recently even had advocates from the Union camp on his side. Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder emphasized that Lauterbach would make a good health minister. It needs a department head who does not need ten minutes of training, said the CSU chairman in the ARD program “Anne Will”. “I think Mr. Lauterbach can definitely do that.” Söder praised Lauterbach’s “basic compass”. “We come from very different Poles, but we often have similar positions. And yes, I appreciate and respect him.”
The department for labor and social affairs is to be taken over again by the incumbent Hubertus Heil. The new building ministry is to be headed by the Brandenburg SPD politician Klara Geywitz. The Hessian politician Nancy Faeser is to become the interior minister. Justice and Family Minister Christine Lambrecht is to take over the defense department. Svenja Schulze is to become Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development. Wolfgang Schmidt is to become the minister of the Chancellery.
The new federal cabinet is to be sworn in after the election of the new federal chancellor, which is planned for Wednesday. The Greens occupy the Foreign Ministry (Annalena Baerbock), the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck), the Family Ministry (Anne Spiegel), the Environment Department (Steffi Lemke) and the Ministry of Agriculture (Cem Özdemir). The FDP provides the finance minister (Christian Lindner), the transport minister (Volker Wissing), the justice minister (Marco Buschmann) and the education minister (Bettina Stark-Watzinger).