Member of the German Bundestag
What was the position of Jürgen Rüttgers before Sep 1990?
Jürgen Rüttgers Jürgen Rüttgers ( born 26 June 1951 ) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) who served as the 9th Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2005 to 2010 . Education . Rüttgers was born in Cologne . He holds degrees in Law and History from the University of Cologne and a Dr . Jur . ( Ph.D. ) in Law ( 1979 ) . He became a member of K.D.St . V . Rappoltstein Köln , a Catholic student fraternity that is member of the Cartellverband . Political career . Career in national politics . Rüttgers was a Member of the German Bundestag from 1987 until 2000 . In 1991 he succeeded Friedrich Bohl as First Secretary of the parliamentary group , in this position assisting the parliamentary groups chairman Wolfgang Schäuble . Rüttgers served as Federal Minister for Education , Science , Research and Technology in Chancellor Helmut Kohls fifth cabinet from 1994 to 1998 . During his time as minister , he was – together with Luigi Berlinguer ( Italy ) , Claude Allegre ( France ) , and Baroness Tessa Blackstone ( United Kingdom ) – one of the heads of the Sorbonne declaration , the joint declaration on harmonisation of the architecture of the European higher education system , on 25 May 1998 . That was the starting point of the so-called Bologna process . He also successfully introduced a law under which online providers can be prosecuted for offering a venue for content illegal in Germany – such as child pornography or Nazi propaganda – if they do so knowingly and it is technically possible and reasonable to prevent it . Also , the law made Germany the first country to set rules for so-called digital signatures and give them the status of a legal document . Between 1998 and 2000 , Rüttgers served as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group , again under Schäubles leadership . In 2000 , he succeeded Norbert Blüm as chairman of the CDU in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia . As head of the party in Germanys most populous state , he commanded considerable influence , especially with its grassroots . He also became the partys group leader in the state parliament and was elected as one of the CDUs deputy party chairmen in 2000 . Amid the revelations of the CDU donations scandal in early 2000 , Rüttgers – who ran as the partys candidate in a crucial state election in North Rhine-Wesphalia that year – was one of the few leading figures who remained loyal to former Chancellor Helmut Kohl even after prosecutors began a criminal investigation into Kohls financial dealings . By January 2000 , daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung claimed that Kohl , angered by party chairman Wolfgang Schäubles efforts to distance himself from the scandal surrounding secret payments to the party , was encouraging Rüttgers to make a bid for the leadership at the CDUs annual conference ; instead , Angela Merkel was elected as Schäubles successor and Rüttgers became one of her four deputies , alongside Volker Rühe , Annette Schavan and Christian Wulff . In his role as chairman of the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia , Rüttgers later publicly endorsed Merkel as the partys candidate to challenge incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2002 federal elections ; instead , Edmund Stoiber ended up being the joint candidate of CDU and CSU . In the state parliament ( Landtag ) election 2005 , Rüttgers was the opposition Christian Democratic Unions front-runner for the second time . After CDU and FDP won a majority of seats in the election on 22 May 2005 , they formed a coalition to take over government from the former SPD and Green party coalition led by Peer Steinbrück . Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia . Rüttgers was elected Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia on 22 June . In his cabinet , he notably included representatives of the Christian Democrats’ more liberal wing , such as Armin Laschet ( as State Minister for Generations , Family , Women and Integration ) and Karl-Josef Laumann ( as State Minister of Labor , Health and Social Affairs ) . On the national level , Rüttgers was part of the CDU/CSU team in the negotiations with the SPD on a coalition agreement following the 2005 federal elections , which paved the way to the formation of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s first government . Under the leadership of Merkel as party chairwoman , he was re-elected vice-chairman of the CDU in November 2006 , this time alongside Roland Koch , Annette Schavan and Christian Wulff . During his time in office , Rüttgers came under severe criticism for failing to mend the states public finances . One of the reasons was the crisis at the state-owned lender WestLB , which led his government to set aside 1.5 billion in 2008 . Rüttgers long wanted the bank to stay independent and categorically ruled out a merger with LBBW . However , by 2007 , he and Roland Koch , his counterpart from the state of Hesse , agreed on approving a merger of their respective state-owned banks , WestLB and Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen ( Helaba ) . WestLB was eventually broken up in 2012 after years of losses and controversy . Between 2007 and 2009 , Rüttgers was one of 32 members of the Second Commission on the modernization of the federal state , which had been established to reform the division of powers between federal and state authorities in Germany . Shortly before the 2010 state elections , Rüttgerss public image was damaged by a party fund-raising scandal , and local issues like education and the troubles of municipalities with heavy debt burdens were central to the campaign . He led his party to an electoral defeat ; the steep drop of 10 percentage points compared with the previous election , in 2005 , was even larger than most analysts had predicted and gave the Christian Democrats their worst postwar showing in that state . The loss also meant Chancellor Angela Merkel could no longer count on a majority for her governing coalition in the Bundesrat , composed of delegations from all 16 states . In July 2010 , Rüttgers stepped down as caretaker premier and also gave up his position as state party chairman . Life after politics . Rüttgers joined the Düsseldorf office of German law firm Beiten Burkhardt as Of Counsel in March 2011 . In this capacity , he is a member of the firms Assets , Succession , Foundations practice group and also advises international companies on investments in Germany and German companies on international investments . In May 2011 , Deutsche Bahn nominated Rüttgers as executive director of the Brussels-based Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies ( CER ) ; instead , Libor Lochman was eventually appointed to the position . Rüttgers was a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2017 . In addition , Rüttgers has held several paid and unpaid positions since leaving politics , including the following : - 321-2021 : 1700 Years of Jewish Life in Germany , Chairman of the Board of Trustees ( since 2018 ) - CFC Industriebeteiligungen AG , Member of the Supervisory Board ( since 2011 ) - Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation , Member of the Foundation Council - Brost-Stiftung , Member of the Board of Trustees - Deutsche Telekom Stiftung , Member of the Board of Trustees - Konrad Adenauer Foundation ( KAS ) , Member of the Board Political positions . During his political career , Rüttgers proved to be a conservative on social issues such as immigration . He also positioned himself as a workers leader on economics , defending labor rights and opposing business demands for deregulation of the economy . Unlike many in his party at the time , he was also in favor of expanding day care for young children and supported all-day schools . Following the CDUs performance in the 2005 federal elections and the formation of the first government under Chancellor Angela Merkel , Rüttgers blamed her campaign for talking “too much about flat tax and not enough about the people.” Instead , he called on the party to shed its “capitalist” image . In his 1993 book Dinosaurs of Democracy , Rüttgers attacked Germanys main parties and the government for being unwilling to decentralise political power to ordinary people . Controversy . Rüttgers is widely known for his views on immigration and the much-discussed phrase Kinder statt Inder ( children instead of Indians ) which was a media interpretation of Statt Inder an die Computer müssen unsere Kinder an die Computer ( instead of Indians in front of computers , our children must be in front of computers ) , during an election campaign ( which he eventually lost ) at a time when there was a parallel nationwide discussion about whether or not immigration rules should be liberalised on behalf of attracting more highly qualified foreign academics to the German labor market . In response to Rüttgerss much-discussed phrase Kinder statt Inder , Germanys Green Party overwhelmed his Internet mailbox with thousands of messages . The Internet attack was the first of its kind in German politics . Recognition . Honors and Awards . - 1997 – Georg Schulhoff Award - 1997 – Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany - 2004 – In collaboration with the Ministers of Education Luigi Berlinguer ( Italy ) , Claude Allègre ( France ) and Baroness Tessa Blackstone ( Great Britain ) , Jürgen Rüttgers was one of the heads of the Sorbonne Declaration , with the aim of “harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system“ . For their achievements in European education and research , Rüttgers and his colleagues received an honorary doctorate from Roma Tre University in Rome in 2004 . - 2004 – European Craft Award - 2007 – Rident Red Tape Award of the DBB civil servant union and tariff union - 2008 – Commander of the Legion of Honor - 2009 – Grand Cross of the Order of Merit Pro Merito Melitensi of the sovereign Order of Malta - 2010 – Orden wider den tierischen Ernst ( Order against dead seriousness ) - 2010 – Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau - 2015 – Commander Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland Honorary degrees . - 2007 – Honorary doctorate from Waseda University - 2008 – Honorary Professor of Ben Gurion University - 2014 – Honorary Professorship of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn