Posted on Dec 27, 2023
Wolfgang Schäuble: Merkel's no-nonsense finance minister dies aged 81
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German ex-finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who helped steer the eurozone through the debt crisis, has died at the age of 81.
An MP for 51 years in Germany's Bundestag, he played a key role in negotiating German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
He then survived an attempt on his life by a mentally unstable gunman.
And although never chancellor, Schäuble was widely viewed as one of Germany's most influential post-war politicians.
Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had shaped his country for more than half a century and Germany had lost "a sharp thinker, a passionate politician and a pugnacious Democrat".
An MP for 51 years in Germany's Bundestag, he played a key role in negotiating German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
He then survived an attempt on his life by a mentally unstable gunman.
And although never chancellor, Schäuble was widely viewed as one of Germany's most influential post-war politicians.
Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he had shaped his country for more than half a century and Germany had lost "a sharp thinker, a passionate politician and a pugnacious Democrat".
Wolfgang Schäuble: Merkel's no-nonsense finance minister dies aged 81
Posted from bbc.com
Germany
Economics
Finance
Posted 5 mo ago
Responses: 2
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SGT (Join to see) good day Brother Charlie, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."He went on to lead the CDU in 1998, until Angela Merkel took over in 2000 in the middle of a party donations scandal.
On becoming Germany's chancellor in 2005, she appointed him first as interior minister then later as finance minister, where he spent eight years focused on balancing the German budget.
He achieved Germany's so-called schwarze Null or black zero budget deficit in 2014 and he was widely viewed as the driving force behind the austerity policies adopted by the eurozone in response to the debt crisis that began in 2008.
"Greece's debt crisis and the crises it generated offer a clear warning to European policymakers not to allow public debt to pile up indefinitely," he told the European Parliament in 2011.
His no-nonsense approach to the eurozone crisis led him to proposing a Greek "time-out" from the euro, although that was rejected by Athens.
As Greece took on three international bail-out loans, taxes rose, salaries and pensions were slashed and unemployment soared.
Leaving government in 2017, Schäuble became president of the Bundestag. He was its longest-serving MP, winning 14 constituency elections.
In a speech to the European Parliament four years ago, Wolfgang Schäuble said that without European unification, east and west, there would have been no German reunification, and he warned that the "rules-based international order was under pressure".
He withdrew from frontline politics only last year."
..."He went on to lead the CDU in 1998, until Angela Merkel took over in 2000 in the middle of a party donations scandal.
On becoming Germany's chancellor in 2005, she appointed him first as interior minister then later as finance minister, where he spent eight years focused on balancing the German budget.
He achieved Germany's so-called schwarze Null or black zero budget deficit in 2014 and he was widely viewed as the driving force behind the austerity policies adopted by the eurozone in response to the debt crisis that began in 2008.
"Greece's debt crisis and the crises it generated offer a clear warning to European policymakers not to allow public debt to pile up indefinitely," he told the European Parliament in 2011.
His no-nonsense approach to the eurozone crisis led him to proposing a Greek "time-out" from the euro, although that was rejected by Athens.
As Greece took on three international bail-out loans, taxes rose, salaries and pensions were slashed and unemployment soared.
Leaving government in 2017, Schäuble became president of the Bundestag. He was its longest-serving MP, winning 14 constituency elections.
In a speech to the European Parliament four years ago, Wolfgang Schäuble said that without European unification, east and west, there would have been no German reunification, and he warned that the "rules-based international order was under pressure".
He withdrew from frontline politics only last year."
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