He died at the age of 81 German politican, historical Minister of Finance and former President of the Bundestag. The politician CDU he passed away last night, as announced by his family and reported by the German media. He was the longest-serving politician in the German parliament, as well as one of the absolute protagonists of the recent history of his country and of the entire Eurozone.
Who was Wolfgang Schäuble
Schäuble was born in 1942 in Freiburg, Breisgau. Studied in law, Schäuble began his career in 1969 in the Junge Union, the youth organization of the CDU, and was elected to the Bundestag three years later. No German parliamentarian has served longer member of the Bundestag from 1972 until his death, last night.
He also survived an attack. In 1990 he was in fact attacked by a 36-year-old with psychiatric problems who shot him three times: Schäuble was saved and recovered, but since then he had been living in a wheelchair.
In Italy he is best known for his role as Minister of Finance. For years, during the euro crisis, he was in fact described as the "hawk" of the government led by Angela Merkel, staunchly defending austerity and promoting a very hard line towards Greece, then grappling with an economic crisis Without precedents.
It was precisely in that period that he promoted some of his most famous policies in Germany: the Schuldenbremse, the “budget brake” inserted into the Constitution in 2009 which prevents Berlin from exceeding the annual state budget by more than 0,35% and which lately weighs heavily on the Scholz government, but also the "schwarze Null", the zero on the balance sheet. With him at the Ministry of Finance, Germany managed to break even for several years and it was always Schäuble who brought the debt back towards 60%.
The director of German reunification
In addition to Finance Minister and President of the Bundestag, Schäuble has also been over the years Interior Minister of the Kohl government (of which he was the eternal dolphin without ever managing to become chancellor), but also minister of Special Affairs, president of the CDU and president of the CDU-CSU parliamentary group.
As Interior Minister between 1989-1991, in Helmut Kohl's government, Schäuble was one of the architects of German reunification and managed the managed the Treaty of German Unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
With the passing of Wolfgang Schäuble "Germany loses a keen thinker, a passionate politician and a combative democrat", wrote the German Chancellor in Olaf Scholz, which highlights how Schäuble has “shaped our country for over half a century: as an MP, minister and president of the Bundestag”.
