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Annalena Baerbock, Robert Habeck, Olaf Scholz, Christian Lindner: West-heavy traffic light top staff
Photo: Markus Schreiber / AP
A clear majority in the Bundestag, the SPD as the strongest force: The fact that the three traffic light parties were successful in the Bundestag election is largely due to the increase in votes in the eastern German states.
The Union and the left lost votes there.
The importance of the East for the election results has not yet been reflected in the staffing of the traffic light government; East German state associations are hardly taken into account.
So far, the Greens have proposed two people: Michael Kellner from Thuringia is to become Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and Steffi Lemke from Saxony-Anhalt will be Minister of the Environment.
The designated Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock belongs to the Brandenburg State Association, but originally comes from Lower Saxony.
The FDP has not yet announced anyone from East Germany for posts.
The SPD is still waiting with staff proposals.
The Left is calling for an Eastern Quota for the federal government, as stated in a joint statement by several leading politicians that SPIEGEL has received.
"Not yet in office, the traffic light coalition is already threatening to systematically and structurally exclude people from East Germany from the high spheres of government policy in Berlin," says party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow.
"The FDP is and will remain a 'Wessi party', all four of the ministries to which it is entitled have occupied the neoliberals with West Germans."
Party board member and climate expert Lorenz Gösta Beutin particularly criticizes the future Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck: »The four civil servants announced by Habeck come exclusively from West German federal states, which sends a completely wrong message in view of the local population's resistance to coal phasing out, wind power and grid expansion. «
Especially for the »socio-ecological transformation«, people are needed who have had experiences with difficult upheavals.
The federal government must also implement the provincial proportion for civil servants in the federal cabinet, as required in Article 36 sentence 1 of the Basic Law.
At 16 percent this would be three ministerial posts for East Germans, as well as the posts of state secretaries.
The SPD would have to appoint at least two ministers from the East, according to the left.
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