1. Hans Eichel was born on 24 December 1941 and is a German politician and the co-founder of the G20, or "Group of Twenty", an international forum for the governments and central bank governors of twenty developed and developing nations to discuss policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.
Hans Eichel was Germany's Minister of Finance between 1999 and 2005.
Hans Eichel went on to serve as chairman of the G20 in 2004, when he pressed for the reforming of the international financial architecture and establishing a code of conduct on preventing financial crises.
Hans Eichel was brought up in Kassel where he did his Abitur in 1961.
Hans Eichel then completed a degree in German, philosophy, political science, history and education at the universities of Marburg and Berlin, graduating in 1970.
Hans Eichel was noted for his consensus building skills and an ability to mix pragmatism with a mastery of detail.
Hans Eichel believed strongly in European federation and on merging Europe's armies and foreign services, and on giving them a single foreign minister.
Hans Eichel argued that Europe would be very much stronger if it spoke to the outside world with one voice.
From 1975 to 1991, Hans Eichel served as mayor of Kassel, initially gaining the office at the age of only 33.
From 1991 to 1999, Hans Eichel was the Minister-President of Hesse in a coalition government with the Green Party.
Hans Eichel served as President of the Bundesrat from November 1998 to April 1999.
In March 1999, Oskar Lafontaine resigned as Minister of Finance in the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, and Hans Eichel replaced him a month later.
Hans Eichel served as a member of the Bundestag from 2002 to 2009.
At the beginning of his term, Hans Eichel tried to decrease the German federal deficit and wanted a balanced budget until 2006.
For two years after taking over as finance minister in 1999 from the left-wing, fiscally extravagant Oskar Lafontaine, Mr Hans Eichel was the government's star.
Hans Eichel had a public spat in 2003 with then International Monetary Fund chief Horst Kohler, accusing Kohler and the IMF of being too harsh on Germany and too soft on the risks and policy failures of the United States.
Hans Eichel's ministry took no corrective action in response, and from that time forward, gradually larger and larger amounts of forfeited tax revenue resulted.
The group was formally inaugurated in September 1999, Canadian finance minister Paul Martin was chosen to be the first chairman and German finance minister Hans Eichel hosted the first G-20 meeting of finance ministers in December 1999 in Berlin.
Hans Eichel currently leads the expert group on sustainable structural development for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the world's oldest and largest foundation to promote democracy and political education.