Details

Titel

Europe: Rudolf Scharping; Charlemagne

Ist Teil von

• The Economist (London), 2001-09, Vol.360 (8238), p.43

Ort / Verlag

London: The Economist Intelligence Unit N.A., Incorporated

Erscheinungsjahr

2001

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Rudolf Scharping's timing, to say the least, was unfortunate. On the very day that Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and his cabinet were meeting in Berlin to decide whether to send German soldiers into harm's way in Macedonia, pictures of the country's defense minister, hitherto famous for his deadly dullness, were splashed across 9 pages of a popular magazine, showing him cavorting with his new squeeze in a Majorcan hotel swimming pool. Bad luck - but bad judgment too. For the photographs had been taken with Scharping's full approval. But worse was to come. The opposition is in stitches. Scharping, it now turns out, has been using the Luftwaffe to fly him to Frankfurt, where his countess works as a divorce lawyer. Resign, say the Christian Democrats. How can a man with such poor judgment, ask the generals, now manage to push through a raft of awkward military reforms after losing so much face? It was not always so. Scharping's star once shone brightly.