Theo Waigel | |
|---|---|
 Waigel in 2019 | |
| Leader of the Christian Social Union | |
| In office 16 November 1988 – 16 January 1999 | |
| Preceded by | Franz Josef Strauß |
| Succeeded by | Edmund Stoiber |
| Federal Minister of Finance | |
| In office 21 April 1989 – 27 October 1998 | |
| Chancellor | Helmut Kohl |
| Preceded by | Gerhard Stoltenberg |
| Succeeded by | Oskar Lafontaine |
| Bundestag First Deputy Leader of theCDU/CSU Group | |
| In office 4 November 1982 – 16 November 1988 | |
| Leader | Alfred Dregger Wolfgang Schäuble |
| Preceded by | Friedrich Zimmermann |
| Succeeded by | Wolfgang Bötsch |
| Member of theBundestag forNeu-Ulm | |
| In office 3 October 1976 – 17 October 2002 | |
| Preceded by | Leo Wagner |
| Succeeded by | Georg Nüßlein |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Theodor Waigel (1939-04-22)22 April 1939 (age 86) |
| Political party | Christian Social Union (CSU) |
| Alma mater | University of Würzburg |
| Profession | Lawyer |
Theodor Waigel (born 22 April 1939) is a German politician of theChristian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). He representedNeu-Ulm in theBundestag from 1976 to 2002.
Waigel is a lawyer, and earned a doctorate in 1967. He was amember of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2002. He served asFederal Minister of Finance of Germany in the Cabinet of ChancellorHelmut Kohl from 1989 to 1998, and as Chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria from 1988[1] to 1999. He is known as the father of theEuro, the European currency.[2] He played a vital role in its introduction as German Minister of Finance. He also managed to impose anausterity program on West Germans and overcome the massive deficits of German unification to meet the strict fiscal benchmarks mandated by Europe's single currency.[3] In 2009, he was appointed Honorary Chairman of the CSU.
Waigel was born as the son of a small-time farmer from the Swabian village ofOberrohr. When he was 6, his older brother, August, was killed in France during World War 2.[4]
Waigel first became aMember of the German Bundestag forNeu-Ulm in the1972 federal elections. From 1980 to 1982, he served as spokesperson of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group on economic affairs. He was the group's deputy chairman from 1982 until 1989. In this capacity, he also served as the leader of the Bundestag group of CSU parliamentarians.
In a 1989 cabinet reshuffle,ChancellorHelmut Kohl named Waigel as new Federal Minister of Finance, replacingGerhard Stoltenberg. During his time in office, his state secretaries included leading economistsHorst Köhler (1990–1993) andJürgen Stark (1995–1998), among others.
During his time in office, Waigel oversaw the early economic integration of East Germany after the fall of Communism. He not only had to impose enormous new taxes on the German public, but he also had to keep the country's budget deficit from ballooning while Germany was spending $150 billion a year to rebuild the east.[5]
In March 1990, Waigel publicly announced that the government was considering a proposal by its central bank, theBundesbank, for conversion at a rate of one Deutsche mark to every twoEast marks, with an exception for a small portion of personal savings. In response, hundreds of thousands of East Germans protested against the plan, including about 10,000 in East Berlin, who took to thePalace of the Republic, where the newly elected Parliament was holding its inaugural meeting.[6] Chancellor Helmut Kohl said that was not the policy after all.[7]
On 19 May 1990, Waigel and his East German counterpartWalter Romberg signed a state treaty to merge their economies and make theWest German mark the sole legal currency in both nations by 2 July 1990.[8]
In July 1990, Waigel joined Kohl and Foreign MinisterHans-Dietrich Genscher on a trip to Moscow to meet PresidentMikhail S. Gorbachev, where they worked to convince the Soviet leader to drop his remaining objections to German unification withinNATO.[9]
On 9 August 1990, Waigel announced that West Germany's 1990 budget would be its last and that he was withdrawing the Cabinet draft for the 1991 budget to make way for anall-German budget consonant with unification.[10] Later that year, he said that borrowing by government, state and local authorities would total up to $95 billion the following year, nearly five times the equivalent figure for West Germany in 1989.[11] Between 1989 and 1991 alone, the central government's budget deficit soared from 0.5 percent of national income to 5 percent.[12]
Following a proposal developed by Waigel, the Kohl government agreed in February 1991 to an unexpectedly large package of tax increases – including a 7.5 percent surcharge on personal income andcorporate tax payments – to help pay for reunification, as well as the government's contribution to the allied forces during theGulf War and aid to Eastern Europe's fledgling democracies.[13] In March 1992, Germany paid its final installment of $1.68 billion in Gulf War aid to theUnited States, fulfilling its overall pledge of $5.5 billion.[14]
In the national debate on whether the federal government should remain inBonn or move to Berlin, Waigel argued that Germany had assumed enough major financial obligations over the preceding years and could not afford to build a new capital.[15]
In early 1996, Waigel and his French counterpartJean Arthuis launched a French-German economic stimulus package aimed at encouraging spending, increasing growth, cutting taxes on business and reducing unemployment.[16] In the subsequent years, however, both CDU and CSU favored increasing taxes, fearing the consequences of further budgetary cuts; by 1997, the government was already in danger of breaking a Constitutional Court ruling that spending on public investment must exceed the budget deficit. At the time, Germany had a record 2.2 trillion marks in public debt, much of it amassed during Waigel's tenure because of the costs of reunification.[17]
During the period of Reunification in the 1990s, Waigel, as Minister of Finance, refused to return eight buildings in East Germany belonging to six Austrian Jewish citizens.[18]
Soon after taking office, Waigel negotiated with his counterparts of theG7 on the difficult question of rankings in the voting hierarchy of theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF). Under the agreement, Japan and West Germany shared the No. 2 ranking at the agency, ahead of France and the United Kingdom.[19] By 1991, Waigel was the driving force within the G7 to agree in principle that the Soviet Union should be offered a role in the IMF.[20]
In 1991, Waigel became the first chairman of the board of the newly establishedEuropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).[21]
On initiative of Waigel, the Bundestag establied the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) in 1990, using the amount of €1.3 billion from privatizing the former steel groupSalzgitter AG.[22]
After Germany and France failed to get the18th G7 summit to agree on ways to assure the safety of deteriorating nuclear power plants in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Waigel pledged that public funds from the West would nonetheless be mobilized not simply to repair dangerous plants but "to change the whole energy policy in these states so they can conserve energy, develop alternative energy sources and thereby create more leeway for shutting down plants that are unsafe."[23]
Under the leadership of Kohl and Waigel, the adoption of a common currency became central to Germany's goals of political and economic integration in Europe.[24]
At the height of speculative attacks on theEuropean Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) in 1992–93, acting closely with his then counterpartMichel Sapin of France, Waigel repulsed speculators trying to break theFrench franc's parity with theDeutsche Mark by selling marks en masse until the bank traders gave up.[25][26]
Throughout the 1990s, Waigel was seeking to assure a skeptical German public as well as small companies and banks that the new currency would be as stable as the Deutsche Mark, which had become a symbol of Germany's economic hegemony in Europe at the time.[27] In September 1995, Waigel first proposed that countries adopting a single currency agree to reinforce rules on budget deficits and impose financial sanctions against deficit violators that go beyond the penalties included in theMaastricht Treaty.[28] Also in September 1995, Waigel first floated Euro as the name of the new single currency. He later overruled the French government with his proposal; France had favored want the name ECU, theEuropean Currency Unit which was used in many accounts and the issuance of some debt at the time.[29] The name "Euro" was later chosen for the new currency at the European Council in Madrid.
In a move to reduce government spending, Waigel led the call for a reduction in Germany's contributions to thebudget of the European Union in 1996. He wrote to Kohl pointing out that contributions from Germany made up about 60 percent of theEU's regional and structural funds and urging him to push for a cut in Germany's burden.[30] In 1998, he joined fellow finance ministersGerrit Zalm of theNetherlands,Rudolf Edlinger ofAustria andErik Åsbrink ofSweden urgingPresident of the European CommissionJacques Santer to cap the proportion of a country's income which goes to the EU as part of hisAgenda 2000 spending review.[31]
After his failed attempt to pressureBundesbank presidentHans Tietmeyer into a quick revaluation of the country'sgold reserves in order to bring Germany's budget deficit into line with the criteria for the single currency, Waigel had to confront a parliamentary motion against him on 4 June 1997. He won the vote by just 328 votes to 311.[32][33]
In November 1997, Waigel imposed the strictestbudget freeze in the country's history, in a last-ditch effort to fulfill theEuro convergence criteria. The freeze, which lasted until the end of that year, was imposed to save the government a further one billion marks ($578.2 million).[34]
On 30 June 1998, Waigel attended the inauguration ceremony of theEuropean Central Bank inFrankfurt, Germany, alongside Kohl,[35] ECB PresidentWim Duisenberg,President of the European CommissionJacques Santer,President of the European ParliamentJosé María Gil-Robles, British Prime MinisterTony Blair, andChancellor of AustriaViktor Klima.[36]
In 2011, a commentator seeing Germany forced perhaps to choose between monetary stability, on the one hand, and theEMU, recalled by way of contrast Waigel's statement at the founding, "We are bringing the D-Mark into Europe."[37]
In May 1993, Waigel announced that we would leave national politics and run for the state premiership of Bavaria against his rival,Edmund Stoiber.[38] During what turned into a bitter struggle, it was revealed that he was estranged from his wife and had been in a long-standing relationship with former Olympic skier Irene Epple. In the end, he failed to win the premiership but stayed on as party leader. In late 1995, Waigel was re-elected to the CSU leadership with 95 percent of the vote.[39]
Following the1998 elections, Waigel was succeeded byOskar Lafontaine. At the time, he was Germany's longest-serving postwar Finance Minister.[40]
By the end of the 1990s, Waigel and Minister-President Stoiber of Bavaria were locked in a bitter rivalry for control of the state and its ruling party, the CSU.[41] Stoiber had been a vociferous critic of the creation of a single European currency and he has also infuriated both Kohl and Waigel by proposing that wealthy states like Bavaria be freed from having to underwrite social security costs for poorer states.[42] In late 1998, Stoiber succeeded Waigel as chairman of the CSU.
Since his retirement from German and European politics, Waigel has held paid and unpaid positions, including:
After serving asOf counsel with the Munich office of law firm GSK Stockmann + Kollegen for many years,[50] Waigel – alongsideAlexander Radwan, among others – joined Waigel Rechtsanwälte in 2016.[51]
In 2008, following revelations about violations of theForeign Corrupt Practices Act, the German industrial conglomerateSiemens agreed to install Waigel as an outside corporate monitor for four years.[52] Waigel was the first compliance monitor who is not a U.S. national.[53] He served in this position between January 2009 and October 2012.[54]
In 2011, Waigel served as a member of the Board of Trustees of theMunich bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
In 2012, Waigel joined a newly established external advisory panel under the leadership ofJürgen Hambrecht atDeutsche Bank, which was to review compensation and governance at the company.[55]
Even after the end of his political career, Waigel was a CSU delegate to theFederal Convention for the purpose of electing thePresident of Germany in 2009, 2010,[56]2017[57] and2022.[58]
In 2013, Waigel was offered the role of president ofTSV 1860 Munich but decided against it.[59] Amid the2015 FIFA corruption case, he declined offers to join an advisory board to the2016 FIFA Reform Committee.[60]
From 2016 to 2022, following an appointment byChancellorAngela Merkel, Waigel served on a three-member panel (alongside Michael Gerhardt andKrista Sager) to oversee the implementation of a new law designed to avoid potential conflicts of interest, requiring senior German officials from the chancellor to deputy ministers to observe a cooling-off period if they want to quit the government for a job in business.[61][62]
AlongsideDavid Gold, Baron Gold andNoëlle Lenoir, Waigel was appointed byAirbus to an Independent Compliance Review Panel (ICRP) in 2017, amid investigations by theSerious Fraud Office (SFO) and theFrench National Financial Prosecutor (PNF) into allegations offraud,bribery andcorruption in the company's civil aviation business.[63][64] In 2021, he was appointed to co-chair – alongsideBrigitte Zypries – an independent expert commission established by audit firmErnst & Young to assess its involvement in theWirecard scandal.[65]
From 1966 to 1993 Waigel was married to Karin Waigel (two children). Since 1994 he has been married to the Olympic alpine skierIrene Epple; they have one child.[66]
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