Is Germany's Finance Minister Going Rogue?

Spiegel
October 3, 2011

He used to be regarded as Germany's safest pair of hands when it comes to the euro crisis. Now, criticism of Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is growing within the government parties. Some believe that Schäuble wants to exploit the crisis to push through his vision of a United States of Europe. By SPIEGEL Staff.

A pall of silence fell over the German parliament as Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble went up to the lectern last Thursday. The debate over the expansion of the euro backstop fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), had already been going on for over an hour. Previous speakers addressing the Bundestag had tried their hand at a number of different roles. Schäuble's predecessor in office, Peer Steinbrück of the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), had tried to present himself as a European statesman, whereas Rainer Brüderle, the parliamentary floor leader for the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), had vehemently attacked the opposition.

Now, it was the turn of Schäuble, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He feigned the honest broker who tries to mediate between the parliament's legitimate demand to have a say in such important matters and the exigencies of international political crises. "No one here sees this as an easy decision," he said. The question at hand, he continued, is whether politicians are capable of "controlling these developments."

The government, it seems, is certainly able to exercise control, at least when it comes to maintaining discipline within its own ranks. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Peter Altmaier, the conservatives' parliamentary secretary, exchanged congratulatory text messages after winning the key Bundestag vote on the euro bailout fund: "Our efforts paid off."

Two things became clear at the end of last week -- a week that many pundits had prematurely predicted would spell the end of the center-right coalition of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union and the FDP. First, the government can rely on its own parliamentary majority to push through euro bailout legislation -- at least for the time being. Second, Merkel's finance minister, of all people, has sown doubt about the government's crisis management. In the days running up to the vote, Schäuble needlessly fueled a debate over expanding the euro backstop fund, and his comments sparked renewed tensions within the coalition.

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