German interior minister draws flak for choosing all-male team

BERLIN - New German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has come under sharp criticism for nominating an all-male team of state secretaries.

In an internal communication seen by German daily Die Zeit, the Interior Ministry's equal opportunities officer Maria Spetter said the decisions were met with "complete incomprehension" by the staff.

Spetter accused Seehofer, who is from the Christian Social Union (CSU) party, of "mocking" the coalition agreement between his party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Social Democrats. One of the official goals of the agreement is to ensure equal participation of women and men in leading public service positions until 2025.

Spetter called the personnel decisions a "political and societal step backwards which pitted men and women against each other."

The ministry was unwilling to comment on the communication or confirm its existence. A photograph of Seehofer with his new team of eight male state secretaries posted on the ministry's official website Wednesday was removed after it provoked widespread outrage.

Before his current job, Seehofer was CSU leader and governor of the state of Bavaria in southern Germany. The CSU is the only one of the three coalition partners that has not nominated any woman ministers in the new "grand coalition."

Transportation and Digital Infrastructure Minister Andreas Scheuer, also from Seehofer's party, did not appoint any women state secretaries either.

Earlier, Green Party politician Hannah Neumann shared the official image of the Interior Ministry's all-male appointments with the caption "Not my homeland" on Twitter and it quickly went viral. The caption was a play on Seehofer's ministry recently adding a new "homeland" department tasked with preserving traditional customs.

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, however, rejected accusations of gender bias, saying Seehofer has merely appointed the individuals he believed to be best suited for the jobs.