CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel is not known as a flirt, but every so often television cameras catch Germany’s matronly leader making eyes at Norbert Röttgen.
After just a year at Dr Merkel’s cabinet table, the 45-year-old environment minister has already earned the title “Mammy’s favourite”.
His star rose again yesterday after he was elected head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in his native North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW).
Heading Dr Merkel’s party in NRW, Germany’s industrial heartland and most populous state, is a position of considerable prestige and influence.
If Mr Röttgen plays his cards right, something most analysts seem confident he will, the trained lawyer and career politician could be Dr Merkel’s natural successor as CDU leader – or even her rival for the post of chancellor.
Before then, the man one gossip magazine dubbed the “George Clooney of German politics” – in a field with remarkably little competition – faces a difficult balancing act.
His Berlin ministry is at the heart of a long-running energy debate in Germany, and Mr Röttgen spearheaded a recent high-profile effort to extend the life of the country’s nuclear reactors.
He will now have to balance his time between this high-profile role and his new responsibilities in Düsseldorf, the state capital of North- Rhine Westphalia.
Here he faces the arduous task of sorting through the rubble of a party that, in 2005, sailed into power for the first time in half a century, only to be scuttled on the rocks and washed back into opposition last May.
Mr Röttgen is largely untested at local level – he bypassed Düsseldorf for Berlin – and he will be reliant on loyal allies to help steer the CDU ship on the Rhine during his ministerial absences.
The self-described “structural conservative” has made his name on national economic and financial matters.
Now he has to build up competencies and confidence on local issues with rural CDU voters, many of whom don’t welcome his new-fangled ideas.
Mr Röttgen is one of a new generation of CDU leaders most likely to lead the party into coalition talks with the Greens, a no-go area for older party members.
His energetic attack on Germany’s continued nuclear energy dependence last February seemed a clear play for Green affection.
However Mr Röttgen’s green stock has taken a dive in recent weeks after he renewed the licences of the country’s nuclear reactors, albeit with a €3 billion price tag for investment in renewable energy.