In 2005, he became the new Foreign Minister of Germany in the coalition cabinet of Angela Merkel. He became Vice Chancellor of Germany in 2007. In 2008 he was elected to be the chancellor candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) for the election in 2009. The SPD got their worst result ever in a German federal election (23.0%), and Steinmeier became leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag.