Three weeks after the election Angela Merkel has now been offically appointed as chancellor of Germany,
Reuters reports:
Conservative leader Angela Merkel will become Germany's first woman chancellor under a deal with Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) to break a post-election deadlock, sources said on Monday.
Three weeks after voters gave Merkel's conservatives an unexpectedly narrow win over Schroeder's SPD in a federal election, senior sources from both parties said an agreement had been struck that should pave the way for a power-sharing cabinet.
According to a senior SPD source, the SPD is poised to get the foreign, finance, justice and labour ministries in a new coalition government led by the 51-year old Merkel, a pastor's daughter who grew up in the former communist east.
It will be interesting to see whether Schroeder becomest the new foreign secretary, remaining a thorn in the side of the neocons in Washington.