Sworn in at the Bundestag: Bilger as transport minister and Linnemann as health minister

Steffen Bilger and Carsten Linnemann took their oaths in the Bundestag six weeks after they formally became ministers. The two CDU politicians were sworn in before Bundestag President Julia Klöckner at the first plenary sitting after the summer recess.

Their appointments formed part of Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz’s cabinet reshuffle. Bilger succeeded Patrick Schnieder as transport minister after Schnieder was dismissed by the chancellor. Linnemann took over the Health Ministry from Nina Warken, who moved to the Chancellery Ministry. Warken did not need to swear a new oath because she had already done so in her previous ministerial post.

Bilger and Linnemann had already assumed their offices in late July, when President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented their appointment certificates. The delay in taking the parliamentary oath was considered legally sensitive. Under the Basic Law, ministers must take the oath before the Bundestag “when assuming office,” although the law does not specify an exact deadline.

The appointment certificate marks the formal start of a minister’s term, while the Bundestag oath has mainly symbolic significance. It signals that the federal government’s democratic legitimacy comes from parliament. Some constitutional lawyers nevertheless argued that the chancellor breached the Basic Law by assigning ministers their portfolios before they took the oath.

The government attributed the delay to financial considerations. A special Bundestag sitting during the parliamentary summer recess would have required lawmakers to return from vacation and created additional costs.