Wolfgang Schäuble, German minister during the euro crisis, has died. Von der Leyen: “Great loss for Germany and Europe”

Brussels – A “great loss” for Germany and Europe: the top leaders of European institutions remember Wolfgang Schäuble, the influential longtime member of Germany’s CDU, who died last night (Dec. 26) at age 81.

Finance minister in the governments led by Angela Merkel from 2009 to 2017, Schäuble was one of the most determined promoters of austerity and – during the the euro and European sovereign debt crisis- the tug-of-war with Greece, even proposing that Athens leave the single currency. But well before his roles in the Merkel-led governments, Schäuble links his name and his work to German reunification: from 1989 to 1991, as minister of the interior in the government in the hands of Helmut Kohl, he managed the overcoming of the two Germanies and the entry of the east into the EU.

“Through his actions and example, he shaped German democracy like no other. He always thought big and far,” is the tribute dedicated to him on X by the President of the European Commission – and his fellow citizen, Ursula von der Leyen. In a tweet in German, Roberta Metsola, chairwoman of the European Parliament, expressed her condolences, “saddened” by the death of “a man who dedicated his life to the service of the people, a political role model who shaped Germany and Europe as an MP, Bundestag president. and minister.” Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party group, also liked to remember him  as “one of the main architects of Germany’s economic unification and European integration.”

Schäuble is one of the politicians with the longest career in Germany: West Germany’s federal minister as early as 1984 to 1989, then interior minister who managed the negotiations for the country’s reunification; he was also president of the CHD from 1998 to 2000, interior minister from 2005 to 2009, and president of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, from 2017 to 2021. He had been in a wheelchair since 1990, the year he suffered a vicious attack: he was wounded in the face and spine by three bullets fired by a man, later found to be mentally incompetent, and was paralyzed from the waist down from that time.

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