New CSU ministers: That's behind Söder's cabinet reshuffle

The cabinet reshuffle in Bavaria, which had been in the air for a long time, was set to work on Wednesday by Prime Minister Markus Söder.

The new Minister of Construction and Transport will be the former President of the Bavarian District Council, Christian Bernreiter, who will be replaced by Kerstin Schreyer.

Markus Blume, previously CSU general secretary, will replace Bernd Sibler as science and art minister, and Blume's successor in the CSU state leadership will be Stephan Mayer, member of the Bundestag, who was parliamentary interior secretary under Horst Seehofer until 2021.

Carolina Trautner, Minister of State for Family, Labor and Social Affairs, who, like Schreyer, was only appointed to office by Söder two years ago, must vacate her ministry - Ulrike Scharf, who Söder had dismissed as Environment Minister in 2018, will take her place.

Timo Frasch

Political correspondent in Munich.

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Restructuring the cabinet in Bavaria today is tantamount to squaring the circle.

Not only do all administrative districts want to be considered and the women also want to be adequately represented.

In addition, there are Söder's clear ideas: the ministers, he said on Wednesday, must show "the highest level of expertise in the country" and at the same time act "on an equal footing with the federal government".

Ideally, this means being perceived as an opponent of the respective federal minister.

At the same time, they must be "local heroes", i.e. potential voice kings in their district.

Everyone should also - Söder didn't say that, but you know that - bring the same passion and willingness to attack that he claims for himself, but also the gift of getting out of the sun for the boss at the decisive moment.

Those who master this art well

On the other hand, Schreyer's near future had been debated for some time.

Not only is she supposed to have crossed paths with her own house because she went there with the unshared claim of having to “clean up”.

Their recent attempts to sell the ailing balance sheet of state-owned housing company Bayernheim also failed.

According to many observers, the previous Science Minister Sibler lacked the stature to meet the self-confident partners from art and science as equals.

Ulrike Scharf has advocates like Ilse Aigner

The Higher Education Innovation Act for which he is responsible is widely viewed as a botch – and he was never able to put his own stamp on Söder's high-tech agenda.

There were also embarrassing PR glitches, for example when he was photographed in December 2020 in the state parliament eating sausages with five people at the table.

Despite the Corona measures, none of them wore a mask, including the now replaced Minister of Construction Kerstin Schreyer.

Sibler's successor, Markus Blume, is considered to be intellectually talented, urban and tech-savvy.

He's supposed to take over science and technology policy and make Free Voters boss Hubert Aiwanger look old-fashioned as economics and energy minister.

For a long time it was doubted whether Christian Bernreiter would give up his position as local hero of Deggendorf, vulgo: district administrator, in favor of a comparatively uncertain cabinet post.

It was clear that Söder would want him: Bernreiter is from Lower Bavaria and can replace Niederbayern Sibler in this capacity.

But there, in the realm of Hubert Aiwanger, he can also stand up to this.

Horst Seehofer has already tried to appoint him to the cabinet.

This allegedly also failed due to resistance from the Lower Bavarian CSU district leadership;

but it is currently so weak in the person of Andreas Scheuer that it should not have played a role in Söder's considerations.

The future Minister of Social Affairs, Ulrike Scharf, is popular in the CSU and has advocates like Ilse Aigner.

In her most recent function as chairwoman of the Bavarian Women's Union, she gave it a lot of visibility.

The fact that Carolina Trautner did not succeed with her ministry may have been her undoing.

It had also been speculated that Agriculture Minister Michaela Kaniber should be given even more prominence as CSU General Secretary.

Some say they didn't really want to.

It can be heard from those around Söder that the Ministry of Agriculture is too important to be able to do without Kaniber there.

The bottom line is that the cabinet has lost a woman, which is only half offset by the appointment of Tanja Schorer-Dremel as deputy CSU general secretary.

But Söder wouldn't be himself if he didn't have the right motto: He "not only decided stubbornly according to proportional representation and parity, but also according to profile and perspective".