2023-12-27 09:08:01
BERLIN (AP) — Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped negotiate Germany’s reunification in 1990 and who as finance minister was a central figure in the austerity effort to pull Europe out of its debt crisis more than two decades later, has died on Tuesday at 81 years old.
Schaeuble died at his residence, his family told the German news agency dpa on Wednesday.
Schaeuble became Chancellor Angela Merkel’s finance minister in October 2009, shortly before revelations about Greece’s budget deficit sparked the crisis that engulfed the continent and threatened to destabilize the global financial order.
A long-time supporter of greater European unity, he helped spearhead a years-long effort to achieve deeper integration and set higher standards. But Germany came under fire for its emphasis on austerity and a perceived lack of generosity.
After eight years as finance minister, Schaeuble confirmed his status as a statesman by becoming president of the German parliament, his latest step in a long political career during which he overcame enormous challenges. He remained as a legislator until his death.
Schauble was confined to a wheelchair after being paralyzed from the waist down when a mentally ill man shot him during a campaign rally in 1990, shortly after reunification.
He returned to work within a few weeks and, the following year, was credited with helping influence Parliament to move the capital of reunified Germany from Bonn to Berlin.
On his 70th birthday in 2012, Merkel referred to Schaeuble as “an architect of German unity, an architect of the government movement and the current architect of a stable eurozone.”
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