Olaf Scholz sworn in as Germany’s new finance minister

WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE may have left the German finance ministry in September, but the austere legacy of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) lives on; for example in the national debt clock in central Berlin, ticking downwards at about €100 ($123) a second, and in Germany’s reputation, burnished during the euro-zone crisis, for fiercely guarding its economic stability and taxpayers’ money. Such is his bequest to Olaf Scholz, the incoming centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) finance minister and previously the mayor of the northern port of Hamburg.

Mr Scholz’s traits are those typically associated with its burghers: pragmatic, plain-spoken (“I’m liberal, but not stupid” he once said on law and order) and Protestant (no alcohol was served at his leaving party at Hamburg’s city hall, it being a work day). In the early 2000s he was dubbed “Scholz-o-mat” for his robotic loyalty, as the SPD’s general secretary, to the then-chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. He was subsequently well respected as Angela Merkel’s second labour minister and, from 2011, as leader of Hamburg’s state government—at least until last July, when he faced calls to resign over poorly policed riots during the G20 summit of world leaders.

Following his party’s rout at last September’s election, Mr Scholz was instrumental in reversing an initial decision to go into opposition and steering the party back into government with Mrs Merkel, a deal he admits “does not begin as a marriage of love”. On March 14th, hours after the Bundestag elected her chancellor for her fourth and probably final term, he was sworn in as her new finance minister and vice-chancellor. That appointment makes him one of the two leading figures in the SPD along with Andrea Nahles, its more left-leaning leader in the Bundestag, who is expected to be elected leader next month.

Mr Scholz is unlikely to transform Mr Schäuble’s domestic legacy. Though the coalition deal splurges much of Germany’s budget surplus (€37bn last year), it also pledges balanced books and no new debt. In any case, his instincts are fiscally conservative by SPD standards.

The real question is how these instincts combine with his, and his party’s, professed pro-Europeanism. It is hard to imagine Mr Scholz advocating Greece’s expulsion from the euro, for example, as his predecessor once did. Emmanuel Macron, who had feared that the finance ministry would go to the somewhat Eurosceptic Free Democrats, called Germany’s new government “good news for Europe”. But in Berlin scepticism about his proposals for euro-zone integration is widespread, and the coalition deal is vague on the matter. Like Mrs Merkel, Mr Scholz seems to favour incremental progress. With plans for an initial agreement with France due by June, precisely how incremental will soon become clear.