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German economy minister says will step down Monday
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German economy minister says will step down Monday
AFP - Monday, February 9
BERLIN (AFP) - - German Economy Minister Michael Glos said he would hand his resignation to Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday, after his party agreed to drop its opposition to his decision to quit the government.
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Glos met with the head of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, late Sunday after the party and Merkel said they would accept his wish to leave.
"I will ask the chancellor tomorrow morning to propose my resignation to the president of the federal republic," Glos said after a crisis meeting with CSU chief Horst Seehofer in Munich.
The upheaval in the government comes as Europe's biggest economy faces its steepest downturn since World War II, and just seven months before a general election.
Glos said a "very good solution" has already been found to replace him, without divulging his successor's name. The CSU said a new economy minister would be named as early as Monday.
The sharp-tongued minister had been widely criticised for his ineffectual management of the economic crisis, and for repeatedly harping on Merkel to slash taxes to help boost consumer spending and investment despite her vehement refusals.
But when she did an about-face last month, unveiling a 50-billion-euro (66-billion-dollar) stimulus package over two years that was full of tax relief, Glos still found himself sidelined.
In his resignation letter, nevertheless, he appeared to seek credit for his efforts.
"My work as minister for the economy and technology has been the high-point of my political life," Bild daily cited the letter as saying.
"First and foremost it was important to me to implement quickly effective measures in the financial and economic crisis that also carried my signature."
Vice-chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who will challenge Merkel in the September national election, said Sunday he was "more than unhappy that the future of the economy minister is being debated in the middle of an economic crisis".
Glos, 64, had asked Seehofer Saturday to be relieved of his post, citing the party's drive to bring in new blood after a disastrous Bavarian state election in September.
But the party leader refused, saying Glos still had his full confidence.
In Germany, the parties in the ruling coalition -- currently comprised of the conservatives and the Social Democrats -- name the ministers.
A CSU source said Sunday it had become clear over the weekend, however, that Glos was no longer viable as economy minister.
"The whole thing took on a dynamic of its own," the source said.
"It was clear that Glos could not be kept in office."
Merkel, at a security conference in Munich, did not address the crisis in public.
The daily Der Tagesspiegel said Glos could not have picked a worse time to try to resign, and its execution could hardly have been more awkward.
"Michael Glos offers to leave at a time when Germany, Europe and the whole world find themselves in the worst economic crisis of the last decades and countless decisions are expected of his ministry that could be decisive for the economic future of the whole country," the newspaper said in an editorial.
The developments came as more grim news hit, with the finance ministry predicting the federal deficit would reach 60 billion euros in 2010, compared to 11.5 billion euros in 2008, Der Spiegel magazine reported.
Adding to Merkel's woes was a blistering attack by Steinmeier, who is also foreign minister, against her response to the global financial crisis.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, the Social Democrat (SPD) said Merkel's CDU and their allies were "incapable of finding the right way to face the crisis.
"It is only thanks to the SPD that (Mrs) Merkel, as chancellor, has been able to make the right decisions," Steinmeier said.
The Christian Democrats and the CSU "barely contributed" to the government's economic stimulus plan, said Steinmeier, who up until now had largely refrained from attacking Merkel so as to not upset the delicate balance in the coalition.
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German Economy Minister Michael Glos, pictured in January 2009, announced late Sunday that he would officially hand his resignation to Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday.
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