2023

BERLIN (AP) — Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped negotiate German reunification in 1990 and as finance minister was a central figure in the austerity-heavy effort to drag Europe out of its debt crisis more than two decades later, has died. He was 81.

Schaeuble died at home on Tuesday evening, his family told German news agency dpa on Wednesday.

Schaeuble became Chancellor Angela Merkel’s finance minister in October 2009, just before revelations about Greece’s ballooning budget deficit set off the crisis that engulfed the continent and threatened to destabilize world’s financial order.

A longtime supporter of greater European unity, he helped lead a yearslong effort that aimed for deeper integration and a stricter rulebook. But Germany drew criticism for its emphasis on austerity and a perceived lack of generosity.

After eight years as finance minister, the conservative Schaeuble cemented his status as an elder statesman by becoming the German parliament’s speaker — the last step in a long front-line political career that saw him overcome daunting setbacks. At the time of his death, he was the country’s longest-serving lawmaker.

A mentally disturbed man shot Schaeuble at an election rally in 1990, just after reunification. He was paralyzed from the waist down and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

He returned to work just weeks later and, the following year, was credited with helping sway Germany’s parliament to move the reunited nation’s capital from Bonn to Berlin.

Schaeuble “shaped our country for more than half a century: as a lawmaker, minister and parliament speaker,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “With him, Germany is losing a sharp thinker, a passionate politician and a combative democrat.”

From the early days of Europe’s debt crisis, Schaeuble pushed for tougher rules to keep government deficits under control. Berlin initially held out against bailing out Greece and other debt-laden countries, and critics charged that Germany’s reluctance to move increased the price tag.

Lead lender Germany stamped its mark on the rescue effort — insisting on tough conditions such as budget cuts in exchange for helping struggling countries and keeping them under pressure to comply. In 2012, Schaeuble insisted that European countries “are on the right track — in reducing their deficits, in improving their productivity and so their competitiveness.”

“That is the decisive thing, and we cannot spare any country this through supposed generosity or solidarity,” he said. “That is not obstinacy — it is understanding that democratic majorities only make unpleasant decisions when there is no easier alternative.”

When a left-wing Greek government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was elected in 2015 on pledges to scrap the painful spending cuts and tax hikes demanded by creditors, Schaeuble took a tough line. Later that year, he suggested that Greece could take a five-year “timeout” from the euro, but fell in line with Merkel’s insistence that a so-called “Grexit” was off the table.

Under pressure at home for reform of the wider financial system, Schaeuble pushed with mixed results for a levy on banks to ensure that they pay the costs of future crises, and for an international tax on transactions.

He drew criticism for an abrupt and unilateral German ban on some speculative trading practices, which unsettled markets, and was unapologetic.

“If you want to drain a swamp, you don’t necessarily ask the frogs if you want an objective verdict,” he said.

In Germany, Schaeuble took pride in balancing the budget for the first time in decades. Critics largely outside Germany that fiscal restraint held back the recovery of the currency union as a whole.

Schaeuble was born Sept. 18, 1942, in Freiburg. He worked as a tax official in his native southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg before winning election to the West German parliament in 1972.

He first joined West Germany’s Cabinet in 1984, serving as Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s chief of staff for five years before becoming interior minister.

In that job, Schaeuble was a key West German negotiator as the country headed toward reunification with the communist east after the Nov. 9, 1989, fall of the Berlin Wall.

He helped ready the treaty that created the legal framework for unification on Oct. 3, 1990.

Nine days after reunification, Schaeuble was shot while campaigning for the united country’s first election in Oppenau, in southwestern Germany.

An assailant with a history of mental problems fired a shot into Schaeuble’s spine that left him paralyzed. Another bullet hit his face, and Schaeuble had to undergo plastic surgery.

Schaeuble quickly returned to politics. In 1991, he delivered an impassioned plea to parliament for post-reunification Germany to return to its traditional capital, Berlin.

“Deciding for Berlin is a decision to overcome the division of Europe,” he said, before lawmakers voted narrowly to back the move.

From 1991 to 1998, Schaeuble served as parliamentary leader of Kohl’s conservative Christian Democratic Union. He finally became CDU leader after Kohl’s 16-year stint as chancellor ended in a 1998 election defeat.

However, in February 2000, after becoming implicated in a party financing scandal surrounding Kohl, he was replaced by Merkel.

Schaeuble was later touted as a candidate for Germany’s largely ceremonial presidency, but was passed over as Merkel chose former International Monetary Fund chief Horst Koehler.

He returned to the Cabinet when Merkel became chancellor in 2005 for his second stint as interior minister. He was an unexpected, but widely respected, choice as finance minister four years later.

Schaeuble is survived by his wife, Ingeborg, and four children.

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By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Dan Williams and and Ahmed Mohamed Hassan

GAZA (Reuters) – Egypt has held talks between Hamas and its allied Islamic Jihad to try and broker a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed tens of thousands, laid waste to the Hamas-governed territory, and displaced the majority of the 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

Here are the various proposals Egypt is presenting:

RELINQUISH POWER

Egypt is proposing that Hamas and Islamic Jihad relinquish power in the Gaza Strip in return for a permanent ceasefire, said two Egyptian security sources.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials have rejected such a proposal, the Egyptian sources said. Officials of the two groups denied publicly what the sources said.

Leaders of the two groups have repeatedly insisted a post-Gaza war future should be decided by the Palestinians themselves and not according to foreign dictation.

Israel has demanded the destruction of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying this would entail the dismantling of all of their military and governance capabilities and a deradicalising of the Gaza population. It was not immediate clear if the proposed removal of the militant groups from power would satisfy those demands.

CEASEFIRE STAGES

Egypt is suggesting a multi-stage ceasefire, with an initial temporary ceasefire lasting for a period of one or two weeks, said two Egyptian security sources.

The temporary ceasefire could be renewed.

According to Palestinian officials, who said it was a three-stage ceasefire, during the first 10-day humanitarian truce Hamas would release all women, children and old men held captive.

In return, Israel would release an agreed number of Palestinian prisoners in the same categories, stop all fighting, relocate tanks to outside populated territory, and allow delivery of medical and food aid, fuel and cooking gas.

It will also allow the movement of people back to northern Gaza.

The second stage would see Hamas freeing all Israeli women soldiers. In return Israel would release another group of jailed Palestinians.

The two parties would also swap bodies withheld since Oct 7.

The third stage may last one month, and pending negotiations, see the release of all captives in Hamas custody in return for an agreed upon number of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel will withdraw tanks from Gaza and both sides will halt all hostile activities.

HAMAS REJECTS TEMPORARY CEASEFIRE

Egyptian sources said that both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have been holding separate talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo, will not stop fighting unless Israeli “aggression” ends.

Osama Hamdan, senior Hamas official, told reporters in Lebanon during a news conference, when asked about initiatives presented to the movement on a ceasefire:

“There are many ideas, that are being presented, and we are dealing with those ideas on the basis that we want a comprehensive end of the aggression and not temporary truces. We are open to ideas that may lead to that,” said Hamdan.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad insist a prisoner swap deal should see the release of all Palestinians in Israeli prisons. “All for all” said a senior Islamic Jihad official.

Israel has been open to another limited ceasefire, but has rejected the Palestinian militants’ demands for an end to the war and withdrawal of forces from Gaza.

FINAL PHASE

One Egyptian source said the idea of a post-war Gaza administration was raised. Palestinian officials said the issue wasn’t part or a condition of a ceasefire proposal.

Egypt has fostered talks to form a government of technocracts which would handle relief aid and reconstruction of Gaza and hold a legislative election.

The final phase of the proposal would see an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and allow the displaced to return.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Michael Perry)

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