The Cabinet will host today at the Elysee a guest: Wolfgang Schäuble, Minister of Finance and strongman of the government of Angela Merkel. Last survivor of the dinosaur era Kohl, Schäuble, 67, is both the most Francophile and most pro-European ministers in Germany. This man of iron is outspoken apostle of rigor in Germany but also in Europe.President Sarkozy and his government, which had inspired his brake mechanism to debt, lend him an ear.
This is the first time a German minister participates in a French Cabinet, a symbolic meeting to be held under the theme of "European economic governance," a topic that has divided President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
To revive the Franco-German, Paris and Berlin had decided in early February to open the meetings of government ministers of both countries. In late March, Christine Lagarde, with whom he maintains a good relationship, had attended a cabinet meeting Merkel in Berlin. Schäuble was forced to postpone his visit to the French Council of Ministers, in May, for health reasons.
It tames the suffering
This practicing Protestant was never one to panic.Some in Europe have criticized him his reluctance to rush to the aid of Greece. Schäuble dream aloud of a federal Europe. He put one on the table the creation of a European Monetary Fund. A mechanism has been adopted approached in early May by the euro area but in his absence: he had been rushed to hospital in Brussels. A poorly healed wound was nailed to a hospital bed, where he led his ministry for several weeks cash advance loan. What has not failed to feed the rumors about his departure from government.
But it has long been tamed Schäuble suffering. Minister of Interior of Kohl, his life is turned upside down in 1990, when he fell under the bullets of a balance. An avid tennis, the ambitious politician finds himself in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down.His wife suggested that he give up politics. It is at the head of his department after several weeks of convalescence. And now asserts that his passion for politics has helped to overcome the ordeal, which he calls "this shit". Gray eminence of Helmut Kohl, which was also the dolphin, it was he who negotiated the contract of German reunification with East Germany.
His ambitions were often thwarted. For example, Kohl's, for which he retains a deep respect, clung to power for 16 years, only disappearing never to its advantage. In the late 1990s, Schäuble flows in the case of the CDU slush funds: he accepted 100,000 DM jars of wine a sour arms dealer to finance the party. The case forced him to resign from the head of the Conservative Party and bar him permanently road to the Chancery. Then between Merkel track.Fearing that it will make him the shadow Chancellor he preferred another candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. Merkel, who sought a strong man to hold his government partners Liberals imposed the Ministry of Finance. He has gained the nickname "Sparminator.
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