Schroder becomes chancellor as new government promises radical reforms

Exactly a month after winning Germany's federal election, Mr Gerhard Schroder was sworn in yesterday as the country's seventh chancellor since the end of the second World War.

The Bundestag elected the 54-year-old Social Democrat by a secret vote of 351-287, with 27 abstentions, a result which means seven members of the opposition must have voted for Mr Schroder.

"I welcome every vote," he said, but declined to speculate in public about where the extra votes might have come from.

When the vote was announced Mr Schroder stood up and embraced his party chairman, Mr Oskar Lafontaine, who was sworn in later as the new Finance Minister.

Dr Helmut Kohl, who left office yesterday after 16 years as chancellor, looked impassive as he walked across the chamber to shake Mr Schroder's hand.

When asked how he felt about leaving office, Dr Kohl replied in English: "That's life."

Mr Schroder's election as chancellor marks an important shift in German politics, as a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens takes federal power for the first time in the country's history.

The new government promises a radical programme of economic reform to put Germany's four million unemployed back to work. Measures to protect the environment include higher taxes on petrol, gas, electricity and heating oil and the closure of all Germany's nuclear power stations.

Up to three million foreigners may become German citizens under a new nationality act which will end the practise of defining citizenship according to ancestry rather than place of birth.

The conservative Christian Social Union announced yesterday that it is planning legal action against the new citizenship law, which it claims is in breach of the Maastricht Treaty.

Mr Schroder's cabinet is dominated by members of Germany's so-called "68 generation" who were radicalised by student protests 30 years ago.

The new Foreign Minister and Green leader, Mr Joschka Fischer, is a former street protester who used to wear a T-shirt, jeans and sneakers in parliament.

The Health Minister, Ms Andrea Fischer, is another Green politician who is a familiar figure in the bars and restaurants of Berlin's raffish Kreuzberg district.

Ms Fischer gave up smoking last weekend and declared that she would also have to stop drinking to curb her craving for cigarettes.

The Interior Minister, Mr Otto Schilly, is a former lawyer who once defended members of the Baader-Meinhoff gang and the Family Minister, Ms Christine Bergmann, is a former East German dissident.

As they were sworn into office at a special Bundestag sitting yesterday afternoon, most new ministers chose the secular form of the oath, omitting the phrase "with the help of God".

Mr Schroder promised to start work on his programme for government immediately and the Greens predicted a "furious" wave of reform.

The challenges facing the new government are immense, both at home and abroad, and Germany takes over the presidency of the European Union in January 1999, on the day the euro is launched.

The new government promises continuity in foreign policy but it is clear that Germany's priorities in Europe are about to change, making a sharp left turn for the EU increasingly likely.