German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has put forward his chancellery chief, Thorsten Frei, to lead the conservative parliamentary group in the Bundestag, moving within four days to close a row over surrogacy that cost his predecessor the post.
Merz and Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder, who leads the Christian Social Union (CSU), presented the nomination to the group’s executive in a video conference on July 22, 2026. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party confirmed the proposal in a joint statement the same afternoon.
The full group is due to vote at a special session on July 29. Until then Alexander Hoffmann, who chairs the CSU regional group and served as deputy to the outgoing leader, is running its affairs.
Söder said he backed the choice, pointing to Frei’s work at the chancellery and earlier as the group’s chief whip.
Frei, 52, has headed the Federal Chancellery since Merz took office in May 2025, coordinating the work of ministries and advising the chancellor. The lawyer was mayor of Donaueschingen, southwest Germany, before entering the Bundestag in 2013.
The move returns him to a role he knows well. He was chief whip of the CDU/CSU group in the previous parliament, when Merz led the opposition.
His record in government has drawn criticism inside the coalition parties. German media reported complaints that coordination between the chancellery, the ministries and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had been poor, with group leaders taking on that task themselves during work on a reform package agreed on July 2.
No successor at the chancellery has been named. Merz told participants in the video conference he wanted to settle the question as quickly as possible.
Jens Spahn, 46, resigned on July 18, 2026, three days after confirming to Bild that he and his husband Daniel Funke had become parents through a surrogate mother in the United States. He wrote that his personal happiness was “not compatible with my political office”.
The former health minister had faced accusations of hypocrisy from opponents and from within his own party, having rejected a push to legalise altruistic surrogacy while in office.
German law prohibits the mediation and medical facilitation of surrogacy, though intended parents commit no offence. A CDU congress in February 2026 reaffirmed the party’s rejection of the practice, including in altruistic form.
Spahn was the second senior CDU figure this year to face criticism over the issue, after MP Hendrik Streeck announced the birth of a son through a US surrogate in April.
The European Parliament condemned surrogacy in a resolution of November 13, 2025, calling on the European Commission to back measures ending what it called the reproductive exploitation of women.
