GERMANY: Wolfgang Schaeuble has won his parliamentary seat a dozen times, survived an attempt on his life and guided Angela Merkel through the euro zone crisis. Now, the German chancellor may have to sacrifice him to secure a coalition deal.
Merkel’s conservatives are likely to win a national election on Sept. 24, but lack of an overall majority could force them to continue their alliance with the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).
SPD leaders say their price for a re-run of the current ‘grand coalition’ would be for Schaeuble to vacate the finance ministry and hand it to them.
Schaeuble personifies the fiscal discipline and financial stability that many Germans crave. But for the SPD he goes too far.
For Merkel’s political opponents, Schaeuble’s emphasis that both Germany and other EU countries adhere to Europe’s budget rules risks denying French President Emmanuel Macron the flexibility to revive his country’s economy.
Germany is awash with tax revenues but France is in a tighter spot. The SPD worries that insistence on French budget discipline will not give Macron the room for maneuver to foster growth. If Macron fails, the SPD’s concern is the EU will fail or that far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win power.
SPD Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said he had asked Merkel which scenario in her view would be more expensive for Germany: a slightly higher budget deficit in France or Le Pen as president in five years.
“We Germans must change our position,” Gabriel said.
Softening Schaeuble’s approach to the euro zone would not go down well with many Germans. In his home region of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where hard work and saving is a way of life, he enjoys cult status.
In Schaeuble’s view, governments must stop piling up debt so that future policy makers still have some money to spend.
READY TO CONTINUE
In a wheelchair since a deranged man shot him at an election campaign event a few days after German reunification in 1990, Schaeuble lives for the job and has signalled his willingness to stay in politics.
“I’m ready to continue,” he told voters in Sasbachwalden, his home town near the French border.
Schaeuble does not let his disability hold him back.
In May, he flew half way around the world to spend 12 hours in Durban, where he attended several panels at the World Economic Forum on Africa, backed efforts to attract more investment and lectured students on how the EU works.
It is this relentless drive that commands the respect of voters and colleagues alike.
“When I go to breakfasts and party meetings with him, he is the one who is the most aggressive — ready to take on the Social Democrats,” a senior German government official said.
But while polls suggest Merkel will win a fourth term in September, she might end up losing Schaeuble as finance minister.
TRICKY TALKS
Merkel faces tricky coalition talks over ministerial jobs in the next parliament.
Senior members of the two parties most likely to be her junior coalition partner — the SPD and the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) — have made clear that they have their eye on the finance ministry this time.
“The SPD won’t repeat the mistake it made during the coalition talks four years ago,” Gabriel told reporters.
In 2013, the SPD focussed mainly on domestic issues and pushed for the introduction of a national minimum wage. It consequently got the labor ministry, among other departments such as economic affairs and foreign relations.
Now, the SPD’s candidate for chancellor, Martin Schulz, has made investment and solidarity with Europe a cornerstone of his campaign, signalling a less rigid stance on the budget.
If the Social Democrats are forced into another grand coalition under Merkel, it would be “very important” for the SPD to get the finance ministry, a senior SPD source told Reuters.
“If there’s one thing we Social Democrats have learned, it’s this: We should not enter coalition again without controlling the finance ministry,” SPD budget lawmaker Johannes Kahrs told Reuters.
The smaller FDP shares similar thoughts. A senior FDP source said the party was interested in the finance ministry, although it could be more difficult for it to achieve this.
REFORM, THEN INTEGRATE
Senior members of Merkel’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc acknowledge that she could win the election and still be forced to give up Schaeuble as finance minister.
Eckhardt Rehberg, Merkel’s chief budget lawmaker in parliament, said his party would find it hard to keep the finance ministry if the election produced another ‘grand coalition’ with the SPD — an option both parties have said they dislike.
“Keeping the finance ministry will be most difficult to achieve with the SPD as junior partner because the party has put a strong emphasis on finances and Europe,” Rehberg told Reuters.
“If we have a similar situation on election night as we did four years ago, the SPD is likely to demand not only the foreign ministry but also the finance ministry,” he added.
It remains unclear whether Merkel will have to sacrifice Schaeuble. But his departure would be a blow for the chancellor’s goal of strengthening integration within the EU once Britain leaves, or at least within the euro zone.
For Merkel, deeper integration is a question of sequencing.
This is where Schaeuble could help her: keeping skeptical German voters and lawmakers on board by insisting France and the southern euro zone countries reform first, before agreeing to bind Germany’s economic fate closer to theirs.
“If France becomes stronger that would help,” said one senior official close to Merkel.
Merkel may win election, but lose her finance minister
Merkel may win election, but lose her finance minister
WHO appeals for $1 bn for world’s worst health crises in 2026
- The UN health agency estimated 239 million people would need urgent humanitarian assistance this year and the money would keep essential health services going
GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Tuesday appealed for $1 billion to tackle health crises this year across the world’s 36 most severe emergencies, including in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The UN health agency estimated 239 million people would need urgent humanitarian assistance this year and the money would keep essential health services going.
WHO health emergencies chief Chikwe Ihekweazu told reporters in Geneva: “A quarter of a billion people are living through humanitarian crises that strip away the most basic protections: safety, shelter and access to health care.
“In these settings, health needs are surging, whether due to injuries, disease outbreaks, malnutrition or untreated chronic diseases,” he warned.
“Yet access to care is shrinking.”
The agency’s emergency request was significantly lower than in recent years, given the global funding crunch for aid operations.
Washington, traditionally the UN health agency’s biggest donor, has slashed foreign aid spending under President Donald Trump, who on his first day back in office in January 2025 handed the WHO his country’s one-year withdrawal notice.
Last year, WHO had appealed for $1.5 billion but Ihekweazu said that only $900 million was ultimately made available.
Unfortunately, he said, the agency had been “recognizing ... that the appetite for resource mobilization is much smaller than it was in previous years.”
“That’s one of the reasons that we’ve calibrated our ask a little bit more toward what is available realistically, understanding the situation around the world, the constraints that many countries have,” he said.
The WHO said in 2026 it was “hyper-prioritising the highest-impact services and scaling back lower?impact activities to maximize lives saved.”
Last year, global funding cuts forced 6,700 health facilities across 22 humanitarian settings to either close or reduce services, “cutting 53 million people off from health care.” Ihekweazu said.
“Families living on the edge face impossible decisions, such as whether to buy food or medicine,” he added, stressing that “people should never have to make these choices.”
“This is why today we are appealing to the better sense of countries, and of people, and asking them to invest in a healthier, safer world.”
