Guido Westerwelle, 47, led the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) to their best-ever result in the September 27 election, with the party taking just under 15 percent of the vote.

That ended an 11-year spell in opposition for the FDP and paved the way for it to become the junior coalition partner to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU). It has also handed Westerwelle a chance to move on from his role as leader of the opposition and on to greener pastures.

The roles of foreign minister and vice-chancellor are traditionally awarded to the leader of the junior party in federal coalition governments. Westerwelle assumes these positions from Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was also the SPD's chancellor candidate in the recent election.

Political freshman

But with only experience outside of government, and a political career that has barely, if ever, involved foreign relations, some are asking what Westerwelle can bring to the position.

He has little direct experience of foreign policy but has recently made some visits abroad, including to Russia.

His party is pro-American and Westerwelle is not expected to deviate from the approach of his predecessors, nor from the "basic tenets" of post-war German foreign policy.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, Westerwelle said nuclear non-proliferation and the removal of US atomic warheads from German soil would be a priority for his ministry. Merkel has said this would be achieved through dialog with Germany's partners in the NATO forum.

Westerwelle is also known to be a supporter of stronger trans-Atlantic ties, and is a member of the non-partisan Atlantik Bruecke (Atlantic Bridge) organization, dedicated to achieving this goal.

But that won't necessarily mean that Germany will give in to US wishes to commit more troops to Afghanistan. While Westerwelle has been vague on many foreign-policy points, he has stated clearly his aversion to any expansion in German army operations under NATO.

Questions over effectiveness

But Westerwelle is bound to make waves for being Europe's first openly gay foreign minister, having publicly "come out" at Merkel's 50th birthday party. The trained lawyer has dismissed any notion that this could pose problems in his role as foreign minister.

"Some other countries may have had a problem with the fact that Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor of Germany. Of course she does not wear a veil on the red carpet when she visits certain Arab states," he has been quoted as saying.

"The decision as to whom we send as a government representative rests solely with us Germans, based on our political and moral standards."

Born in Bad Honnef, near Bonn in western Germany, Westerwelle was elected to the German parliament in 1996 and became head of the FDP in 2001.

Westerwelle's seeming reluctance to speak English has raised some questions about his suitability for the post of Germany's top diplomat.

Westerwelle declined to answer a question in English that had been put to him by a BBC reporter during his first news conference after last month's elections.

"In Great Britain it is expected that people speak English, and it is the same in Germany - people are expected to speak German," Westerwelle said at the time, prompting heated debate on the Internet.

On the domestic front, the thorniest issue for Westerwelle has been over tax cuts.

The Free Democrats had promised voters 35 billion euros worth of cuts in the recent election, but Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) wanted only 15 billion euros. On Saturday, the coalition partners put this issue to bed, agreeing on 24 billion euros in cuts.

dfm/AFP/dpa

Editor: Sonia Phalnikar