The CDU ministerial posts in the Merz cabinet have been distributed. The Ministry of Transport responsible for shipping goes to Patrick Schnieder from Rhineland-Palatinate.
Schnieder was a member of the Transport Committee of the German Bundestag from 2009 to 2021. He is likely to play an important role in the implementation of the €500 billion special fund for infrastructure.
Schnieder will take over from Volker Wissing, who was initially Federal Minister of Transport in the Scholz cabinet as an FDP member. With the premature end of the “traffic light” government of SPD, Greens and FDP, Wissing resigned from his party in order to continue as a non-party member of parliament.
Schnieder, a lawyer by training, has been Chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate regional group of the CDU in the Bundestag since 2017 and Parliamentary Secretary of the parliamentary group since 2018. Schnieder has been a directly elected member of parliament for the Bitburg constituency since 2009 (40.2% in the last Bundestag election). So far, he has been less in the public eye than his younger brother Gordon Schnieder, Chairman of the CDU Rhineland-Palatinate since September 2024 and top candidate in the 2026 state election.
As reported by Tagesschau, even leading CDU members were unaware of the ministerial posts announced today. Merz apparently made the appointments himself.
In addition to the Ministry of Transport, the CDU/CSU will assume the following responsibilities in the government:
- Johann Wadephul, Federal Foreign Minister
- Katherina Reiche, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy
- Thorsten Frei, Federal Minister for Special Tasks and Head of the Federal Chancellery
- Alexander Dobrindt, Federal Minister of the Interior
- Nina Warnken, Federal Minister of Health
- Karin Prien, Federal Minister of Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
- Dorothee Bär, Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space
- Alois Rainer, Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture
- Karsten Wildberger, Federal Minister for Digitalization and State Modernization
- Wolfram Weimer, Minister of State for Culture and the Media
- Michael Meister, Minister of State for Cooperation between the Federal Government and the Federal States
