31 Facts About Theo Waigel

Theodor Waigel was born on 22 April 1939 and is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria.

Theo Waigel represented Neu-Ulm in the Bundestag from 1976 to 2002.

Theo Waigel was a member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2002.

Theo Waigel served as Federal Minister of Finance of Germany in the Cabinet of Chancellor Helmut Kohl from 1989 to 1998, and as Chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria from 1988 to 1999.

Theo Waigel is known as the father of the Euro, the European currency.

Theo Waigel played a vital role in its introduction as German Minister of Finance.

Theo Waigel managed to impose an austerity program on West Germans and overcome the massive deficits of German unification to meet the strict fiscal benchmarks mandated by Europe's single currency.

Theo Waigel was born as the son of a small-time farmer from the Swabian village of Oberrohr.

Theo Waigel first became a Member of the German Bundestag for Neu-Ulm in the 1972 federal elections.

Theo Waigel was the group's deputy chairman from 1982 until 1989.

In March 1990, Theo Waigel publicly announced that the government was considering a proposal by its central bank, the Bundesbank, for conversion at a rate of one Deutsche mark to every two East marks, with an exception for a small portion of personal savings.

In July 1990, Waigel joined Kohl and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher on a trip to Moscow to meet President Mikhail S Gorbachev, where they worked to convince the Soviet leader to drop his remaining objections to German unification within NATO.

On 9 August 1990, Theo 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 an all-German budget consonant with unification.

In 1991, Theo Waigel became the first chairman of the board of the newly established European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

In September 1995, Theo 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 the Maastricht Treaty.

Also in September 1995, Theo Waigel first floated Euro as the name of the new single currency.

Theo Waigel later overruled the French government with his proposal; France had favored want the name ECU, the European Currency Unit which was used in many accounts and the issuance of some debt at the time.

Theo Waigel wrote to Kohl pointing out that contributions from Germany made up about 60 percent of the EU's regional and structural funds and urging him to push for a cut in Germany's burden.

In November 1997, Theo Waigel imposed the strictest budget freeze in the country's history, in a last-ditch effort to fulfill the Euro convergence criteria.

On 30 June 1998, Theo Waigel attended the inauguration ceremony of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, Germany, alongside Kohl, ECB President Wim Duisenberg, President of the European Commission Jacques Santer, President of the European Parliament Jose Maria Gil-Robles, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Chancellor of Austria Viktor Klima.

In May 1993, Theo Waigel announced that we would leave national politics and run for the state premiership of Bavaria against his rival, Edmund Stoiber.

In late 1995, Theo Waigel was re-elected to the CSU leadership with 95 percent of the vote.

Stoiber had been a vociferous critic of the creation of a single European currency and he has infuriated both Kohl and Theo Waigel by proposing that wealthy states like Bavaria be freed from having to underwrite social security costs for poorer states.

Theo Waigel was the first compliance monitor who is not a US national.

Theo Waigel served in this position between January 2009 and October 2012.

In 2011, Theo Waigel served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Munich bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

In 2012, Theo Waigel joined a newly established external advisory panel under the leadership of Jurgen Hambrecht at Deutsche Bank, which was to review compensation and governance at the company.

In 2013, Theo Waigel was offered the role of president of TSV 1860 Munich but decided against it.

From 2016 to 2022, following an appointment by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Theo Waigel served on a three-member panel 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.

Alongside David Gold, Baron Gold and Noelle Lenoir, Theo Waigel was appointed by Airbus to an Independent Compliance Review Panel in 2017, amid investigations by the Serious Fraud Office and the Parquet national financier into allegations of fraud, bribery and corruption in the company's civil aviation business.

From 1966 to 1993 Theo Waigel was married to Karin Theo Waigel.