Fourth Merkel cabinet


The fourth Merkel cabinet is the 24th and current government of Germany, sworn in on 14 March 2018 after Angela Merkel was proposed as Chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and elected by the Bundestag on the first ballot.
The government is supported by a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union of Bavaria, and the Social Democrats, as was its immediate predecessor.

Composition

The cabinet consists of Chancellor Angela Merkel and fifteen Federal Ministers. Fourteen ministers head a department, one member of the cabinet, the Chief of Staff of the Chancellery, will be a Federal Minister for Special Affairs without a portfolio. CDU has 7 positions, SPD has 6, and CSU has 3, as follows:

2018 government crisis

In June 2018, a government crisis erupted within the cabinet between Interior Minister and CSU Chairman Horst Seehofer and Chancellor Angela Merkel, after Seehofer had elaborated a masterplan on asylum policies, containing the rejection of asylum seekers already registered in other EU countries. Seehofer threatened to resign over the crisis on 1 July, but an agreement was made between the CDU/CSU sister parties on 2 July.