A German official says leading conservative lawmaker Hans—Peter Friedrich will become the country’s new interior minister as part of a small—scale reshuffle following the resignation of the defence minister.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the Christian Social Union, made the announcement on Wednesday. The party is the Bavaria—only sister to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union.
The move appears to pave the way for Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, a member of the CDU, to become the new defence minister as has been widely speculated in German media.
The outgoing defence minister, Karl—Theodor zu Guttenberg, is a member of Seehofer’s party. He quit on Tuesday amid persistent allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis.
