HAMBURG, Sept 30 |
HAMBURG, Sept 30 (Reuters) – German Agriculture Minister
Ilse Aigner stepped down on Monday to return to local politics
in her home state of Bavaria, her ministry said.
Aigner had said last year she would leave following a
parliamentary election on Sept. 22, prompting speculation that
she was eyeing the post of Bavarian prime minister should the
incumbent, Horst Seehofer, step down.
Aigner’s southern conservative party CSU has long held power
in the state.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives achieved
their best result in decades in the Sept. 22 election but must
still find a coalition partner to secure a third term, a process
which could last weeks.
Until a new government is formed, Interior Minister
Hans-Peter Friedrich will also head the agriculture ministry,
the ministry said in a statement.
Aigner was a little-known member of parliament with no
previous ministerial experience when she took over the
agriculture and consumer protection portfolio in 2008.
She had to juggle competing pressures as Germany generally
supported a cut in European Union spending even as farmers
demanded the government uphold their large EU subsidies.
Aigner gained a reputation as a steady hand when dealing
with a series of food safety scandals that disrupted commodity
markets.
She imposed tough new safety standards for animal feed
manufacturers after dioxin was found in German feed in 2011, a
move widely supported in the market to retain public confidence.
She also took a tough line against cultivation of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Germany but received
praise from commodity traders when she supported imports of GMOs
approved in the United States and South America to secure German
supplies of soybeans for animal feed.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan; editing by Tom Pfeiffer)