Johann Wadephul is to become Germany's Foreign Minister
A North German with plenty of experience in international affairs is to be in charge of the Federal Foreign Office.
It has been almost 60 years since Germany had a Foreign Minister from the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU). This is about to happen again, in Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government: Johann Wadephul will be in charge of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.
Merz is expected to be elected as the Federal Chancellor in a coalition government of CDU/CSU and SPD on 6 May, and Wadephul is to take on his new position on the same date.
The lawyer and Reserve Lieutenant Colonel was born in 1962 and has been a member of the Bundestag since 2009. Prior to this he held a number of different positions in the CDU branch of the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein, where he was born in the town of Husum. Wadephul can look back on a long career in which he was actively involved in Germany's foreign policy and international relations.
Wadephul is very experienced in foreign affairs
As a Bundestag member he has been part of the parliamentary committees that are responsible for international relations, foreign and security policy of the Federal Republic: the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on European Union Affairs and the Defence Committee. As Deputy Chair of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, he was in charge of foreign and security policy. He has also travelled abroad together with Friedrich Merz numerous times.
Wadephul started to thoroughly prepare for his new position, several weeks before taking up his duties. He visited, for example, the Foreign Ministers of France, Poland, Italy and the United Kingdom, Germany's biggest and most important allies.
Respected by political rivals
He is the father of three children, met his wife in school, and describes himself as a family man. The way he comes across is in line with the idea that many people in Germany have of Northerners: Wadephul has a clear stance and way of speaking, without using too many words.
Even his political rivals appreciate this. “Johann Wadephul is an experienced, well-versed, knowledgeable foreign affairs politician,” the foreign policy expert Ralf Stegner from the SPD once said about Wadephul, adding that he stood for “pragmatic, level-headed foreign policy”. (with dpa)
