Wolfgang Schäuble, the diligent finance minister under Merkel's leadership, passes away at 81

Wolfgang Schäuble, the former finance minister of Germany who played a crucial role in navigating the eurozone through the debt crisis, has passed away at the age of 81. Serving as a Member of Parliament for 51 years in Germany's Bundestag, Schäuble played a significant part in the negotiations for German reunification following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He narrowly survived an assassination attempt by a mentally unstable gunman. Although he never held the position of chancellor, Schäuble was widely regarded as one of the most influential politicians in Germany's post-war era. Beyond Germany, Schäuble gained notoriety among many Greeks during the eurozone debt crisis, as he was seen as the architect of an extremely unpopular austerity program imposed on their country. Schäuble joined the conservative CDU party in 1965 and entered the Bundestag seven years later. In his role as interior minister of West Germany, he co-signed the treaty in East Berlin that led to the unification of the country in August 1990. Schäuble referred to the reunification as the pinnacle of his political career. However, shortly after German reunification, he was shot and left paralyzed, using a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. Schäuble made a remarkable comeback a few months later with a passionate plea for Berlin to become the unified country's capital, replacing Bonn. He then went on to lead the CDU in 1998 until Angela Merkel assumed leadership in 2000 amidst a party donations scandal. When Merkel became Germany's chancellor in 2005, she appointed Schäuble as interior minister and later as finance minister. During his eight-year tenure as finance minister, he focused on balancing Germany's budget, successfully achieving a budget deficit of zero in 2014. He was widely recognized as the driving force behind the adoption of austerity policies by the eurozone following the 2008 debt crisis. Speaking to the European Parliament in 2011, Schäuble warned policymakers about allowing public debt to accumulate indefinitely, using Greece's debt crisis as an example. He proposed a Greek "time-out" from the euro, which was ultimately rejected by Athens. As Greece faced multiple international bail-out loans, taxes increased, salaries and pensions were reduced, and unemployment rates soared. Schäuble concluded his political career in 2017 when he became the president of the Bundestag, having been its longest-serving Member of Parliament and winning 14 constituency elections. In a speech to the European Parliament four years ago, Schäuble emphasized that German reunification would not have been possible without the unification of Europe, both east and west. He also expressed concern about the strain on the rules-based international order. Only last year, Schäuble retired from frontline politics.