Chancellor of Germany (1949–present) on the recommendation of the chancellor; no parliamentary approval is needed. According to the Basic Law, the chancellor may set the number of cabinet ministers and dictate their specific duties. Chancellor Ludwig Erhard had the largest cabinet, with 22 ministers, in the mid-1960s. Helmut Kohl presided over 17 ministers at the start of his fourth term in 1994; the 2002 cabinet, the second of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, had 13 ministers, and the Angela Merkel cabinet as of 22 November 2005 had 15. Article 65 of the Basic Law sets forth three principles that define how the executive branch functions: Whenever
Germany and the United Nations in October. Both Germanies were admitted as full members of the United Nations (UN) on 18 September 1973. The two countries eventually merged on 3 October 1990, signifying an end of the Cold war era. Today, Germany is the third largest contributor to the UN budget, after the United States and Japan, with 190 million US dollars, or roughly 8% of the UN budget for the 2010-11 biennial budget. The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) was admitted to the UN as an observer in 1952. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was admitted as an observer in 1972. On