Stolen car puts minister offside

BERLIN - Chancellor Angela Merkel's struggling challenger in Germany's September 27 election defended the Health Minister yesterday over use of her official car on a holiday in Spain.

But he said he would leave her off his campaign team for now.

Ulla Schmidt's break has made toe-curling headlines for Frank-Walter Steinmeier's centre-left Social Democrats since it emerged on Monday that her official Mercedes S-Class sedan, worth €100,000 ($216,000), was stolen in Spain.

That raised questions as to whether it was proper or cost-effective to have her chauffeur drive the car 2400km - unhelpful for a party trailing Merkel's conservatives in polls.

Newspaper's have dubbed Schmidt "Minister Shameless" and "Nulla" - a play on "null," the German for "zero."

Steinmeier, Merkel's Foreign Minister in the "grand coalition" government of left and right parties, plans to unveil his campaign team, a kind of shadow Cabinet, today. It had been expected to include Schmidt.

Steinmeier called her "an experienced and successful Health Minister." However, "we have agreed that she will not be a member of this team so long as the accusations are not cleared up fully," he said after she flew back to Berlin yesterday.

There was some good news for Schmidt - the stolen car was recovered in Spain, undamaged.

Schmidt's ministry has said ministers are entitled to an official car with a driver at all times, at home and abroad. It has argued that there were security arguments in favour of her using the car and that Schmidt had some official business in Spain.

Schmidt, 60, has said she logs private use of the car and settles the costs separately.

A poll conducted between July 20-24 - before the flap over Schmidt - and published yesterday illustrated the extent of the struggle Steinmeier faces. The survey, by the Forsa agency, put support for Merkel's conservatives at 38 per cent, two points higher than the previous week, with the Social Democrats on 23 per cent.

Merkel hopes to end her coalition" of Germany's biggest parties after the election and form a centre-right coalition, replacing the Social Democrats as her partner with the pro-business Free Democrats.

The poll put support for the Free Democrats at 13 per cent, enough to give Merkel's preferred alliance a majority.

Steinmeier has struggled to make inroads on Merkel's personal popularity. Yesterday's poll found that, if Germans could choose their leader directly, 58 per cent would choose Merkel and only 17 per cent would prefer Steinmeier.

- AP