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
Chancellor of Germany (1949–present) Council of Ministers of the GDR "(Vorsitzender des Ministerrats der DDR)". (See Leaders of East Germany.) West Germany's 1949 constitution, the Basic Law ("Grundgesetz"), invests the Federal Chancellor ("Bundeskanzler") with central executive authority. Since the 1961 election, the two major parties (CDU/CSU and SPD) call their leading candidates for the federal election "chancellor-candidate" ("Kanzlerkandidat"), although this is not an official term and any party can nominate a Kanzlerkandidat (even if that party has no chance at all of leading or even becoming part of a government coalition). The Federal Government ("Bundesregierung") consists of the Federal Chancellor and their cabinet ministers,