Germany has a new Chancellor, in the person of its former Vice-chancellor and finance minister, Olaf Scholz.
His emergence brings to an end, Angela Merkel’s 16 years reign in same position.
According to Baerbal Bas, Bundestag president, Scholz, 63, got a clear majority of 395 votes cast by lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
Scholz was officially nominated by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and thereafter returned to take the oath of office before lawmakers.
After being mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg from 2011-2018, Scholz returned to Berlin as Merkel’s finance minister – a role in which he got rid of the goal of balanced budgets and enabled record new borrowing to shield companies and employees from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the European level, he worked closely with France and persuaded Merkel to support a debt-financed European Recovery Fund worth 800 billion euros ($900 billion) to help EU member states hit hardest by COVID-19.
