WOLFGANG SCHÄUBLE may have left the German finance ministry in September, but the austere legacy of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) lives on; for example in the national debt clock in central Berlin, ticking downwards at about €100 ($123) a second, and in Germany’s reputation, burnished during the euro-zone crisis, for fiercely guarding its economic stability and taxpayers’ money. Such is his bequest to Olaf Scholz, the incoming centre-left Social Democrat (SPD) finance minister and previously the mayor of the northern port of Hamburg.
Mr Scholz’s traits are those typically associated with its burghers: pragmatic, plain-spoken (“I’m liberal, but not stupid” he once said on law and order) and Protestant (no alcohol was served at his leaving party at Hamburg’s city hall, it being a work day). In the early 2000s he was dubbed “Scholz-o-mat” for his robotic loyalty, as the SPD’s general secretary, to the then-chancellor, Gerhard...Continue reading
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