Jens Spahn

Lawmakers from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative bloc on Wednesday elected Thorsten Frei as their new parliamentary group leader

Chancellor Friedrich Merz on July 27 named a new transport minister, completing a chaotic cabinet reshuffle sparked by a senior party member resigning over a surrogacy scandal

Chancellor Friedrich Merz was not amused: his CDU opposes surrogacy, a position Jens Spahn himself firmed up in law during his time as Angela Merkel’s last health minister

So when Spahn was made to resign after announcing that he had become a father after he and his husband used a surrogate mother in the US, there was a moment of disbelief among those who thought him a Teflon political operator immune to scandal

Surrogacy is banned in Germany, and the CDU reaffirmed its opposition earlier this year, exposing Spahn, a former health minister and one of the party’s most prominent figures, to accusations of hypocrisy

It was a dizzying end to an overnight scandal that had engulfed the start of the German government's normally sleepy summer season — and which reignited a smoldering national debate over surrogate parenthood

The conservative Christian Democrat took office on 6 May 2025 after a humiliating loss in the first round of voting in parliament

Friedrich Merz has drawn condemnation from NGOs and members of his own government after he called for the vast majority of Syrians living in Germany to “go back to their homeland.”

The SPD’s defeat at the hands of its coalition partner could plunge the party deeper into crisis nationally and destabilize the government in Berlin as the left-wing party seeks to retrench and appeal to what’s left of its socialist base

Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor and leader of the center-right CDU, had just experienced what must have felt like a mixed blessing: welcoming Angela Merkel