“The man who would become king”: Wolfgang Schäuble, the blows of fate, Grexit

Even political opponents recognize his deeds. “For 50 years you have been present in the Parliament, you have been elected in 14 electoral contests, this is a unique achievement”, points out the president of the Federal Parliament Berbel Bass, an official of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Credit goes to her predecessor, Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), who turns 80 on Sunday. He remains politically active and everything shows that he is in no mood to retire, but neither is he to impose his presence.

“I detest political veterans who mix everywhere,” he said in a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. He wants to speak his mind, but only if asked. Which of course happens many times, because Wolfgang Schäuble is now considered an “elder statesman”, an intellectual of the conservative faction with insight and strategic thinking.

The man who would become king

He was elected to the Bundestag for the first time in 1972. He has done it all: Head of the parliamentary group, director of the chancellery, chairman of the CDU, minister of the interior and finance, speaker of the parliament. For Germans, Wolfgang Schäuble’s big moment came on August 31, 1990. On that day, as Minister of the Interior in the government of Helmut Kohl, o Schäuble co-signed the German Reunification Treaty with his East German counterpart Gunder Krause. In June 1991, Schäuble’s speech to Parliament convinced the last undecideds to vote in favor of moving the capital from Bonn to Berlin. “Here we are not talking about a competition between two cities,” he said. “With all due respect, the issue is not about jobs or the cost of moving. We are talking about the future of Germany here.”

Many believed that Wolfgang Schäuble would succeed Helmut Kohl in the chancellorship. But the blows he receives are hard and successive. In October 1990, during a pre-election rally, a psychopath will attack him with a shotgun. Doctors will save his life, but he has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. He does not give up, he quickly returns to the Ministry of the Interior and in 1991 he is appointed head of the parliamentary group of the ruling Christian Democratic Party.

In November 1999 the “black funds” of Helmut Kohl are revealed. The chancellor refuses to name his secret financiers. There is no evidence of Wolfgang Schäuble’s involvement, but a little later a new donation of 100,000 euros puts him in a difficult position. Schäuble believes that while he supports Kohl, he does not reciprocate the support. Shortly before Christmas, Angela Merkel with an article-intervention in the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) will ask for a “new beginning” for the CDU. She had not informed Schäuble about the article, and when he asks for an explanation, she gives him the disarming answer: “If I asked you for approval, you wouldn’t give it to me.”

Fiscal discipline for Europe

Under the weight of the developments in February 2000, Schäuble resigned from the leadership of the CDU. The era of Angela Merkel begins, who, however, not only does not push Schäuble aside, but assigns him very important portfolios, initially the Ministry of the Interior and, since 2009, the Ministry of Finance. For the first time in 45 years, Schäuble draws up a balanced budget. It requires fiscal discipline in Germany, but also in Europe. At the time, Johannes Kars, spokesman for the co-ruling Social Democrats (SPD) on budget matters, told German Radio (DLF) about the finance minister: “He knows how to control his reactions, he knows well what he wants and how he will get it, not necessarily in a friendly way”.

At the time of the euro crisis, the preacher of fiscal discipline cannot but acquire fanatical friends, but also opponents. His proposal for a “temporary” exit of Greece it will not pass from the eurozone. Many years later, in July 2022, Schäuble will declare to the newspaper TA NEA that he “did not want to harm Greece” and that the idea of ​​a temporary Grexit “had been supported by the large majority of finance ministers in the Eurogroup”. Of course, he himself points out that the path of “internal devaluation” that was finally chosen had a great cost for the Greeks. But wouldn’t the “other” devaluation path have (at least) the same cost?

Those who think that Schäuble does not have a “vision for Europe” are probably wrong. But this vision provides for strict criteria for membership in the EU “club”. Schäuble’s proposal for a “multi-speed Europe”, which he first presented in 1994 together with his colleague Karl Lammers, has been partially realized , despite the intense reactions it caused at the time. Schäuble’s signature is also on the proposal for “privileged cooperation” with Turkey, instead of full membership in the EU. Today Schäuble supports the proposal to abolish unanimity in decision-making in the EU. Many times he is divisive, but his word counts. After all, there aren’t many German politicians who speak at the Sorbonne, in French, about the future of Europe and see the audience give a standing ovation. Wolfgang Schäuble has also achieved this.

DW – Giannis Papadimitriou

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