KRGV.com

BERLIN (AP) Angela Merkel's spokesman says the chancellor has full confidence in her education minister, who is facing questions about whether she plagiarized her doctoral thesis.

Steffen Seibert told reporters Monday that Annette Schavan is an "excellent and successful" education minister.

The University of Duesseldorf has been looking into Schavan's 1980 thesis for several months and German media reported over the weekend that an initial appraisal found questionable passages on 60 of its 351 pages. The school says it won't comment while the investigation is ongoing.

Schavan rejects the plagiarism allegations, telling daily Suedwest Presse she never "knowingly falsely cited any sources."

Merkel's former Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned from his post in 2011 after it emerged he copied large parts of his doctoral thesis.