German Health-Care Policymaking Back On Track As Coalition Comes Together

 
• By Ashley Yeo
  
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Germany's center-left SPD party will be the junior partner in the new government after 66% of party members voted in favor of another coalition with the center-right Christian Union parties led by Angela Merkela. Jens Spahn, who is in Merkel's party but not in her inner circle, has already been given the health portfolio.

Jens Spahn
Jens Spahn has been named health minister in Germany's newly formed coalition government.

Progress in German federal government circles has been slow since autumn. [A#MT121536] The hung Parliament in the September general election prompted an historically lengthy coalition process that finally came to end March 4 with the announcement that the center-left SPD had finally swallowed its pride, beat off its recalcitrant young socialists (Jusos) and voted to form another government with the center-right CDU/CSU. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been spared the discomfort of an election re-run. So, fully 161 days after the election day, Merkel is set to be formally voted in as Kanzlerin (chancellor), for the fourth time, in a lower house vote on March 14.

Germany's political class breathed a collective sigh of relief today at the end of a marathon political hiatus. JensSpahn, a...

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