1. Wolfgang Clement was a German politician and a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
25 Facts About Wolfgang Clement
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Wolfgang Clement was the 7th Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 27 May 1998 to 22 October 2002 and Federal Minister of Economics and Labour from 2002 to 2005.
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Wolfgang Clement was an Honorary Member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
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Wolfgang Clement was known for being one of the architects of the Agenda 2010 labor market reforms under chancellor Gerhard Schroder in the early 2000s.
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Wolfgang Clement was credited with the merger of the federal ministry of economics and labor and the Hartz I through IV labor market reforms.
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Wolfgang Clement completed his schooling Abitur at the Graf-Engelbert-Schule in Bochum.
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Wolfgang Clement then completed his apprenticeship, Volontariat, at the Westfalische Rundschau newspaper in Dortmund.
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Wolfgang Clement completed his degree in law at the University of Munster in 1965, including clearing the First State Examination, a qualification that allowed him to teach.
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Wolfgang Clement later worked as an articled clerk and assistant at the Institute for Trial Law at the University of Marburg.
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In 1986, Wolfgang Clement moved to the Hamburger Morgenpost, where he remained as editor-in-chief until 1989.
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Wolfgang Clement started his political career with the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1970 and was a member of the party until 2008.
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Wolfgang Clement relinquished this position in favor of the position of State Minister of Special Tasks for NRW after the state elections in 1990.
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Wolfgang Clement was a member of the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1 October 1993 to 6 November 2002.
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Wolfgang Clement became a member of the SPD federal executive board in 1995, and served until his exit from the party in 2008.
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Wolfgang Clement was elected as Johannes Rau's successor as the Minister president of North Rhine-Westphalia on 27 May 1998.
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Wolfgang Clement took on the responsibilities of justice minister for a brief period between 10 and 22 March 1999, before handing the position over to Jochen Dieckmann, who served as the Justice Minister for NRW through the end of the legislature term on 27 June 2000.
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Wolfgang Clement gave up his office of Minister-President of NRW on 21 October 2002 and was appointed Federal Minister of Economics and Labour in the new government led by Schroder.
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In continuation of this thinking, Schroder and Wolfgang Clement, came up with the Agenda 2010 series of reforms where the economy was given more freedom, and labor market reforms starting with the Hartz I through IV programs were introduced.
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Wolfgang Clement went to the superior Bundesschiedskommission which subsequently cancelled the verdict on 24 November 2008.
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Wolfgang Clement went on to support the Free Democratic Party led by Christian Lindner, but did not join the party.
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In 2007, Wolfgang Clement was awarded the Mercator Visiting Professorship for Political Management at the Universitat Essen-Duisburg's NRW School of Governance.
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Wolfgang Clement was an honorary member of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
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Wolfgang Clement married his wife, Karin, in 1966 and went on to have five daughters and thirteen granddaughters.
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Wolfgang Clement died at his home in Bonn on 27 September 2020, at the age of 80.
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Wolfgang Clement had won a beer drinking contest, by downing a glass of Kolsch beer in 1.5 seconds at a German beer association ceremony in Cologne being held at the 487th anniversary of the Beer purity law, or Reinheitsgebot, in 2003.