BERLIN, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Friday published a list of their ministers in Chancellor Angela Merkel's fourth cabinet.
The SPD will nominate three women and three men to its six ministerial posts, four of whom will be part of a federal government for the first time in their careers. The interim SPD leader and acting mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, will assume the most senior position, occupying the roles of both vice-chancellor and finance minister.
Justice minister Heiko Maas will succeed Sigmar Gabriel as foreign minister, ceding his former office to family minister Katarina Barley. Ex-SPD secretary general Hubertus Heil has been promoted to head the labor ministry, alongside Franziska Giffey of the family ministry and Svenja Schulze from the ministry of the environment) who are both new faces in federal politics.
Speaking to press on Friday at the presentation of the cabinet list, Scholz vowed that the SPD had taken care to assemble a team that could "work together excellently".
At the same time, he also praised SPD's outgoing foreign minister Gabriel, minister for the environment Barbara Hendricks and minister of economics Brigitte Zypries for their "extraordinary performance".
Nearly half a year after national elections were held in September 2016, Germany's next federal cabinet is finally complete.
The complex and difficult political negotiations, which eventually resulted in the re-launch of a "grand coalition" between Merkel's CDU/CSU bloc and SPD, marked the longest period of government formation in the German history.
Merkel is scheduled to be confirmed as Chancellor for the fourth term on March 14 before German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier inaugurates her new ministers in a formal ceremony in Berlin.
While German media largely welcomed the news that an unfamiliar phase of political uncertainty was hence coming to an end in the country, some also criticized a perceived lack of diversity in the cabinet.
Chancellor Merkel and family minister Giffey are the only two Eastern Germans who will join the federal government, a circumstance which underscores a persistent gap in political representation and economic outcomes between the two halves of the country since re-unification in 1989. Additionally, CSU has failed to include a woman in its list of cabinet ministers.
