Sigmar Gabriel will leave his post as economics and energy minister, as well as the leadership of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), to make room for former European Parliament president Martin Schulz as a more promising SPD candidate for the Chancellorship in elections this autumn.

Gabriel during a party meeting proposed Brigitte Zypries, currently secretary of state at the economics ministry and a former justice minister, to succeed him at the helm of the economics and energy ministry, an SPD spokeswoman told Recharge.

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