Chancellor Merz Says Germany’s Next President Must be a Woman

(Bloomberg) -- Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany must appoint a woman as head of state for the first time as the ruling coalition nears a decision on who should succeed President Frank-Walter Steinmeier next year.

“I will propose a consensus candidate to the party, a candidate from the political center,” Merz told district heads of his Christian Democratic Union at a closed-door meeting in Berlin on Monday, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

“I am firmly decided on one point: it has to be a woman,” DPA quoted the conservative leader as saying. He didn’t identify a candidate.

Germany’s president has a largely ceremonial role, though the appointment tends to involve some intense political horse-trading. German lawmakers join state delegates to form the Federal Assembly, which elects the head of state to a five-year term.

Merz has previously signaled he favors putting forward Germany’s first female president as Steinmeier wraps up his second five-year term. But officials in his CDU have expressed reservations about Ilse Aigner, a candidate floated by its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

The Social Democrats, who govern with Merz in a coalition on the federal level, as well as the Greens, have backed appointing a woman to the country’s highest office, which has been occupied by a man since the Federal Republic was founded in 1949.

Steinmeier, 70, a Social Democrat who served two stints as foreign minister and ran unsuccessfully for chancellor in 2009, is term-limited and can’t run again.

CDU officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

--With assistance from Petra Sorge and Arne Delfs.

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