(ANSA-AFP) - BERLIN, APR 28 - 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. (ANSA-AFP).
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