SPD leader Gabriel succeeds Steinmeier as German foreign minister
By
Johannes Stern
31 January 2017
Last Friday, President Joachim Gauck officially dismissed the Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier from the post of foreign minister. His successor is the former economics minister and Social Democratic Party (SPD) chairman, Sigmar Gabriel. The new economics minister is Gabriel’s former state secretary, Brigitte Zypries, who was federal justice minister from 2002 to 2009. On February 12, Steinmeier will be elected to succeed Gauck as president by the Federal Assembly.
As the WSWS wrote in a previous article, the changes, including the chancellor candidacy of former president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz (SPD), are directly linked to the coming to power of Donald Trump. German imperialism is responding by aggressively pursuing its own economic and geopolitical claims, if necessary against its main post-war ally, the United States.
Immediately after Trump’s inaugural speech on January 20, Gabriel had already argued that Germany now had to define and pursue its own interests “rigorously.” Earlier last week, in an interview with business daily Handelsblatt, he stressed it was now a matter of asserting German leadership in Europe and the world.
“Germany should act confidently and not be anxious, let alone submissive,” he said. “We are a technologically highly successful exporting nation, with many industrious workers and shrewd entrepreneurs.” Germany was “not only stable itself, but an anchor of stability for many other countries in Europe.” Trump’s first speech as US president showed “He is bitterly serious in what he means. We will have to dress warmly. But there is no reason for timidity.”
Gabriel’s answer echoes Germany’s…