German Chancellor Angela Merkel looks at Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who is a member of the German Free Democrats (FDP), after he received his dismissal certificate from German President Joachim Gauck at a ceremony for the outgoing German government at Bellevue Palace on October 22, 2013 in Berlin, Germany. The ministers will stay on in their functions until a new government is formed, which will most likely be a coalition between the German Christian Democrats (CDU) and the German Social Democrats (SPD). For the FDP members the ceremony today is especially poignant, as the party failed in recent German elections to receive the 5% minimum of votes necessary to retain its seats in the Bundestag, which means the party no longer has political say on the federal level.