Germany's next cabinet takes shape

BERLIN, Apr 28 (AFP): Germany's conservatives under chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz on Monday announced their cabinet ministers, including an outspoken Ukraine backer as foreign minister, before they are set to take power next week.

Merz's CDU/CSU alliance, winners of February 23 general elections, named Johann Wadephul, a 62-year-old former soldier and trained lawyer, as the new top diplomat for Europe's biggest economy.

Wadephul is expected to play a key role in a new national security council, together with the current and likely future defence minister, Boris Pistorius of the Social Democrats (SPD), to push Berlin's interests in the EU and on the international stage.

Wadephul of the CDU has long been a close confidant and key foreign policy adviser to Merz at a time Europe faces geopolitical upheaval as US President Donald Trump has cast doubt on the future strength of the NATO alliance.

A supporter of strengthened European defence capabilities, Wadephul recently told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is disruptive, he is aggressive, he is hungry".

The CDU/CSU alliance has sealed a coalition deal with the SPD of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose three-party coalition collapsed last November, with the new government set to take office on May 6.

Senior party members from the CDU were set to sign off on the coalition deal later Monday, and SPD party members were expected to do so later this week.

The two parties had already agreed which party would take which ministry, with the CDU and its Bavarian allies the CSU to hold 10 positions between them.

The SPD will take seven, with its co-leader Lars Klingbeil expected to become vice chancellor and finance minister, tasked with rebooting an economy mired in recession for the past two years.

The post of economy and energy minister will go to the CDU's Katherina Reiche, 51, who has recently been working an executive in the energy sector, her party said.