Jürgen Rüttgers

Jürgen Rüttgers is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as the 9th Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2005 to 2010.[1]

Rüttgers was a Member of the German Bundestag from 1987 until 2000. In 1991 he succeeded Friedrich Bohl as First Secretary of the parliamentary group, in this position assisting the parliamentary group's chairman Wolfgang Schäuble.

Rüttgers served as Federal Minister for Education, Science, Research and Technology in Chancellor Helmut Kohl's fifth cabinet from 1994 to 1998. During his time as minister, he was – together with Luigi Berlinguer (Italy), Claude Allegre (France), and Baroness Tessa Blackstone (United Kingdom) – one of the heads of the "Sorbonne declaration", the joint declaration on harmonisation of the architecture of the European higher education system, on 25 May 1998. That was the starting point of the so-called "Bologna process". He also successfully introduced a law under which online providers can be prosecuted for offering a venue for content illegal in Germany – such as child pornography or Nazi propaganda – if they do so knowingly and it is "technically possible and reasonable" to prevent it. Also, the law made Germany the first country to set rules for so-called digital signatures and give them the status of a legal document.[3]

Between 1998 and 2000, Rüttgers served as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, again under Schäuble's leadership.

Career in state politics

In 2000, Rüttgers succeeded Norbert Blüm as chairman of the CDU in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As head of the party in Germany's most populous state, he commanded considerable influence, especially with its grassroots.[4] He also became the party's group leader in the state parliament. In this capacity, he notably opposed the takeover of Mannesmann by the British telecommunications company Vodafone in 2000, one of the largest-ever company takeovers worldwide.[5]

Amid the revelations of the CDU donations scandal in early 2000, Rüttgers – who ran as the party's candidate in a crucial state election in North Rhine-Wesphalia that year – was one of the few leading figures who remained loyal to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl even after prosecutors began a criminal investigation into Kohl's financial dealings.[6] By January 2000, daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that Kohl, angered by party chairman Wolfgang Schäuble's efforts to distance himself from the scandal surrounding secret payments to the party, was encouraging Rüttgers to make a bid for the leadership at the CDU's annual conference; instead, Angela Merkel was elected as Schäuble's successor[7] and Rüttgers became one of her four deputies, alongside Volker Rühe, Annette Schavan and Christian Wulff.[8]

In his role as chairman of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, Rüttgers later publicly endorsed Merkel as the party's candidate to challenge incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2002 federal elections; instead, Edmund Stoiber ended up being the joint candidate of CDU and CSU.[9][10]

Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia

In the 2005 state elections, Rüttgers was the opposition Christian Democratic Union's front-runner for the second time. After both CDU and FDP won a majority of seats in the elections, they formed a coalition to take over government from the former SPD and Green party coalition led by Peer Steinbrück. Rüttgers was elected Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia on 22 June. In his cabinet, he notably included representatives of the Christian Democrats’ more liberal wing, such as Armin Laschet (as State Minister for Generations, Family, Women and Integration) and Karl-Josef Laumann (as State Minister of Labor, Health and Social Affairs).

On the national level, Rüttgers was part of the CDU/CSU team in the negotiations with the SPD on a coalition agreement following the 2005 federal elections,[11] which paved the way to the formation of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first government. Under the leadership of Merkel as party chairwoman, he was re-elected vice-chairman of the CDU in November 2006, this time alongside Roland Koch, Annette Schavan and Christian Wulff.[12]

During his time in office, Rüttgers came under severe criticism for failing to mend the state's public finances. One of the reasons was the crisis at the state-owned lender WestLB, which led his government to set aside 1.5 billion in 2008.[13] Rüttgers long wanted the bank to stay independent[14] and categorically ruled out a merger with LBBW.[15] However, by 2007, he and Roland Koch, his counterpart from the state of Hesse, agreed on approving a merger of their respective state-owned banks, WestLB and Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba).[16] WestLB was eventually broken up in 2012 after years of losses and controversy.

Also in 2007, Rüttgers helped negotiate an agreement on closing Germany's last anthracite mines and clearing the way for the stock market flotation of the mines' owner, RAG AG, at the time the largest German coal producer and an international chemicals, energy and real estate conglomerate.[17]

Between 2007 and 2009, Rüttgers was one of 32 members of the Second Commission on the modernization of the federal state, which had been established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany.

Shortly before the 2010 state elections, Rüttgers's public image was damaged by a party fund-raising scandal,[18] and local issues like education and the troubles of municipalities with heavy debt burdens were central to the campaign.[19] He led his party to an electoral defeat; the steep drop of 10 percentage points compared with the previous election, in 2005, was even larger than most analysts had predicted and gave the Christian Democrats their worst postwar showing in that state.[20] The loss also meant Chancellor Angela Merkel could no longer count on a majority for her governing coalition in the Bundesrat, composed of delegations from all 16 states. In July 2010, Rüttgers stepped down as caretaker premier and also gave up his position as state party chairman.[21]

Life after politics

Rüttgers joined the Düsseldorf office of German law firm Beiten Burkhardt as Of Counsel in March 2011. In this capacity, he is a member of the firm's Assets, Succession, Foundations practice group and also advises international companies on investments in Germany and German companies on international investments.[22]

In May 2011, Deutsche Bahn nominated Rüttgers as executive director of the Brussels-based Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER);[23] instead, Libor Lochman was eventually appointed to the position.[24][25]

Rüttgers was a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2017[26][27] and 2022.[28]

References:

1.  Neukirch, Ralf; Markus Feldenkirchen (10 December 2009). "CDU Governor Jürgen Rüttgers: 'We Cannot Have Massive Cuts' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International". Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on 27 February 2010. Retrieved 29 July 2010.
2.  "Vita JR — Institut für Politische Wissenschaft und Soziologie". politik-soziologie.uni-bonn.de. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
3.  Germany Passes Internet Law Limiting Content Los Angeles Times, 5 July 1997.
4.  Bertrand Benoit (24 April 2008), Merkel's CDU split by pensions strategy Financial Times.
5.  David Teather (22 November 1999), Bid for Mannesmann sparks political outcry The Guardian.
6.  Denis Staunton (9 January 2000), Kohl crony set to launch party coup The Guardian.
7.  Denis Staunton (9 January 2000), Kohl crony set to launch party coup The Guardian.
8.  Hans-Jürgen Leersch (11 April 2000), CDU-Parteitag krönt Angela Merkel Die Welt.
9.  Mitgliederstärkster Landesverband stützt Merkel Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9 January 2002.
10.  Jürgen Fischer and Martin Noé (13 January 2002), Stoiber bindet CDU-Größen ein Handelsblatt.
11.  Am Montag soll auch Merkels Liste stehen Hamburger Abendblatt, 14 October 2005.
12.  CDU-Stellvertreter: Merkels bunte Truppe n-tv, 27 November 2006.
13.  Rachel Morarjee (12 February 2008), WestLB faces up to its next hurdle Financial Times.
14.  Meike Schreiber and Steffen Klusmann (26 November 2007), WestLB may acquire IKB Financial Times.
15.  Beat Balzli, Wolfgang Reuter and Steffen Winter (20 November 2007), Trouble Ahead For State-Owned Banks in Germany Bloomberg News.
16.  Beat Balzli, Wolfgang Reuter and Steffen Winter (20 November 2007), Trouble Ahead For State-Owned Banks in Germany Bloomberg News.
17.  Carter Dougherty (14 June 2007), Germany finds solution to its withering coal mines International Herald Tribune’'.
18.  Judy Dempsey (1 March 2010), Fund-Raising Scandals Pose Risk to Merkel's Party in Two State Elections International Herald Tribune.
19.  Nicholas Kulish (9 May 2010), Conservatives in Germany Suffer Defeat at Polls New York Times.
20.  Nicholas Kulish (9 May 2010), Conservatives in Germany Suffer Defeat at Polls New York Times.
21.  Judy Dempsey (18 July 2010), Merkel Loses Ally as Standing Slides International Herald Tribune.
22.  Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rüttgers Archived 20 December 2016 at the Wayback Machine Beiten Burkhardt.
23.  Pan-European ticketing systems, please European Voice, 11 May 2011.
24.  Trainspotting European Voice, 14 September 2011.
25.  Rüttgers zieht Kandidatur als Bahn-Chef-Lobbyist zurück Spiegel Online, 6 September 2011.
26.  Prominente wählen neuen Präsidenten mit Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 December 2016.
27.  Wahl der Mitglieder für die 16. Bundesversammlung Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, decision of 14 December 2016.
28.  Drucksache 17/16063: Ergebnis der Wahl der Mitglieder zur 17. Bundesversammlung State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia.