NRW MINISTER-PRESIDENT RUETTGERS TO WASHINGTON: MAKING NRW A

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DUSSELDORF 000004 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV ECON ENRG ELAB GM SUBJECT: NRW MINISTER-PRESIDENT RUETTGERS TO WASHINGTON: MAKING NRW A LONG TERM CDU POWER BASE; RECONCILING ECONOMICS WITH SOCIAL JUSTICE DUSSELDORF 00000004 001.2 OF 003 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) Minister-President Juergen Ruettgers will travel to Washington DC, Pittsburgh, and New York City February 12-17 to follow-up on his 2006 trip to the U.S. His primary goals there are to make and renew political contacts and to expand cooperation on renewable energy. This message provides background on Ruettgers, who has been making headlines during the last six months with statements that often sound more like SPD than CDU policy. This has caused some distress in the national CDU and elsewhere, but the NRW party backs him firmly, because they support his goal: to transform NRW, an SPD bastion since the mid-1960s, into a long-term power base for the CDU, which he believes can only be done by "tacking left." For now, his focus is on ensuring a CDU re-election in 2010, but he may have national aspirations beyond that. He is favorably disposed toward the U.S. but is a strong Europeanist and has been less accessible to CG and the U.S. business community than his SPD predecessors. Bio in para 13. End Summary. Emphasizing Social Concerns to Win SPD Voters -------------- -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Since his historic election victory in May 2005, NRW Minister-President Ruettgers has pursued two overriding goals: 1) to be reelected in 2010 and 2) to transform Germany's most populous state into a long term power base for the CDU. With NRW for decades a Social Democratic stronghold (the SPD held power for 39 years prior to 2005),and with its many urban and heavily industrialized areas, SPD instincts run deep in broad swaths of the electorate. To attract SPD voters into the CDU camp and hold them over the long run, Ruettgers has been emphasizing social aspects in Germany's ongoing structural reform debate, using the slogan "reconciling economic reason with social justice." He has supported his FDP coalition partners in their campaign to adapt German economic and social structures to the demands of globalization, but with the proviso that they take greater account of social concerns. A New CDU "Labor Leader"? -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Ruettgers has carved out a position for himself and the NRW CDU as something akin to the "social conscience" of the national party, and he styles himself as a champion of the interests of the "little guy." He takes pride in the fact that in the 2005 state elections the NRW CDU received a majority of the blue collar vote, a traditional SPD voter clientele, and he wants to hold this constituency. In pursuing this goal, Ruettgers has tacked to the left of the SPD, as on the Hartz IV labor market reforms when he set off a furious debate about extending unemployment benefits for those who had paid into the system for a long time -- to the serious discomfort of SPD politicians like Federal Labor Minister Muentefering (SPD) who fumed at being outflanked on this SPD issue. Against this backdrop, it is perhaps not surprising that 90 percent of respondents in a recent poll could not identify the SPD leader in NRW (Hannelore Kraft),while 10 percent even mentioned Ruettgers as head of the SPD. A Successful Minister-President -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Under Ruettgers' leadership, the CDU/FDP coalition in Duesseldorf has in its first 18 months in office put NRW back on track, after the stagnation that characterized the latter years of SPD rule. Moving quickly with an ambitious reform agenda, Ruettgers has cut the public debt and consolidated the state budget, launched sweeping educational reforms to improve schools and universities, taken new initiatives to better integrate the large immigrant population (e.g. by establishing Germany's first Integration Ministry),and fought to phase out the unprofitable hard coal mining industry at the earliest politically feasible date. At the same time, and to Ruettgers' benefit, unemployment has also fallen. ¶5. (SBU) Except for SPD leaders, who have attempted to tar Ruettgers with the label of "speaking left and acting right," voters in NRW have either supported these measures or gone along with them with little protest. Even his tough position on ending hard coal subsidies has generated few demonstrations, despite the job losses they will entail, because NRW voters largely accept his rationale: 1) the need to end the massive coal subsides in the state budget; and 2) the need to invest more in future-oriented activities rather than focus on past industries, however important they may be for the NRW identity. Ruettgers' emphasis is on getting his house in order to ensure his reelection in 2010, and later, perhaps, a place on the national stage. Draws Flak, Sticks to Guns DUSSELDORF 00000004 002.2 OF 003 -------------- ¶6. (SBU) With his emphasis on social issues, Ruettgers has staked out the most prominent position on the left of the CDU, in the tradition of the CDU labor wing (CDA),whose national chairman, Karl-Josef Laumann, is Ruettgers' Labor Minister. He is, however, in the minority in the party and disagrees publicly with parts of Merkel's reform course. For example, he infuriated party leaders and raised some eyebrows abroad by telling the press in July 2006 that the CDU needed to part with "fundamental illusions" ("Lebensluegen"),such as the notion that lower business taxes lead to more investment and job creation. Ruettgers stuck to his views, however, despite criticism in the national CDU, most visibly at its national convention in Dresden in November 2006, when he was reelected a Vice Chair, but with the poorest showing of the four Vice Chairs. Focus on 2010 -------------- ¶7. (SBU) Ruettgers takes this criticism in stride, even relishes the attention it accords him, because unlike counterparts CDU Ministers-President in Hessen (Koch) and Lower Saxony (Wulff),he has no national ambitions for now. Much more important for him for the next several years is the overwhelming support he enjoys in the NRW CDU, where a September 2006 party convention in Muenster showed his leadership to be uncontested. Muenster almost unanimously elected Ruettgers' pick for Secretary General, Hendrik Wuest, a young and dynamic political SIPDIS talent, who appears to be the right man to mobilize the party between now and 2010. Aides tell us Ruettgers sees his national CDU numbers as unimportant, because what counts to the NRW CDU is winning their state, because of a pattern that has with a few exceptions generally applied to post-war German politics: "as NRW goes, there goes the nation." Possible National Ambitions -------------- ¶8. (SBU) Although all NRW CDU contacts and most political observers tell us that for now Ruettgers has a state focus, he may have ambitions beyond NRW after 2010. Two influential NRW CDU insiders (members of the CDU's national executive committee) have told us independently that Ruettgers could become a contender for national CDU chairman and/or chancellor candidate. As a native son from NRW, which comprises almost one fourth of the German electorate, Ruettgers would have certain strengths in a future national contest. If he succeeds in 2010, he could use this power base as a springboard for national politics. However, he is on poor terms with Chancellor and party leader Merkel, and her departure from the political statge is a prerequisite for a national move on Ruettgers' part. Building a Foreign Policy Profile -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Ruettgers' efforts to establish a foreign policy record, despite the limitations inherent in his stature as a state politician, are another signal of national aspirations. While NRW opposition leader, he undertook two official visits to the U.S., which included meetings with Governor Schwarzenegger in California and former Secretary of State Kissinger in New York. In his first nine months as Minister-President, he paid official visits to Benelux, France, UK, Israel, Poland and the United States. In connection with his first U.S. trip as Minister-President in February 2006, he stressed that his two SPD predecessors had never officially visited the United States during their time in office, and announced that he would travel to the U.S. at least once/year. His February 12-17 visit will include meetings on Capitol Hill, at the Energy and Treasury Departments, as well as a meeting in Pittsburgh with Governor Rendell to sign a special cooperation agreement on clean energy cooperation between NRW and Pennsylvania. Foreign Policy Speech Causes Stir -------------- ¶10. (SBU) A January 29 speech before the prestigious German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin is further evidence that Ruettgers is developing his own foreign policy profile. In connection with Germany's EU Presidency, Ruettgers used the speech ("Europe's Role in the New World Order") to praise the "unique success story of European integration as a model for a new world order" and to present his views on UN reform, the Middle East, terrorism and the relationship with the U.S. On the latter, his main point was that a strong united Europe was also in the U.S. interest because there would then be a "balance" in transatlantic relations. He welcomed Chancellor Merkel's initiative to intensify U.S.-EU economic relations. DUSSELDORF 00000004 003.2 OF 003 ¶11. (SBU) Ruettgers' remarks on international terrorism caused a stir, however, as pundits in the center-right daily "Die Welt" and elsewhere challenged one of his theses: that the West has played a role in the rise of Islamic terrorism. Although he and his spokesman defended his remarks as more nuanced than they were portrayed in the media, politicians like national FDP Secretary General Dirk Niebel criticized him. Commentary in NRW SIPDIS suggests that Ruettgers achieved one goal of the speech, to stay in the headlines, this time on a foreign policy issue. Comment -------------- ¶12. (SBU) Ruettgers is favorably disposed toward the U.S., as witnessed by his emphasis on annual visits and guidance to Ministers and close aides to be available as enthusiastic partners for the Consulate. He has not, however, been as accessible as his SPD predecessors to the CG or to the American business community, some of whose leaders for this reason express a certain preference for his predecessors, centrist SPD politicians Peer Steinbrueck and Wolfgang Clement. Ruettgers takes enormous pride in his 2005 victory, considering his leadership role in NRW as having paved the way for the CDU-led government in Berlin. The criticism he receives for his unorthodox positions seems to bother him little, for he cares most about ensuring that the SPD bastion of NRW stays in CDU column. His policy positions are not only tactical considerations, but grow out of his strong personal belief in the social dimensions of Christian Democracy. Aside from the at times awkward policy dilemmas he presents for his party, he has played a loyal regional party power broker for Chancellor Merkel, despite slights (no NRW minister from the CDU). Even his coalition partners in the FDP, many of whom have personal reservations about his social policy ideas, have kept silent because they see him as an ally in their agenda. Given his strong position in NRW, he feels able to stake out independent positions in the party. Biographic Note -------------- ¶13. (U) Personal: Juergen Ruettgers was born on June 26, 1951 in Cologne. He attended a Catholic high school and studied law and history at the University of Cologne. The son of a master electrician who owned a small business, he is married and has three children. During school and his studies, he was an active member of the Catholic Youth in Cologne. After earning a PhD in Law from Cologne University, he joined the youth organization of the CDU, Junge Union, and served as its NRW chairman 1980-1986. He worked for the German Cities and Communities Association and in the administration of his hometown Pulheim, west of Cologne. Federal Government Experience: Ruettgers became a member of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, in 1987, where he stayed until ¶2000. From 1991-1994 he was chief whip of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, one of the most influential positions in parliament, practically the right hand of then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the Bundestag. In 1994, Kohl appointed him Federal Minister for Education, Science, Research and Technology, a position he held until 1998 when Kohl lost the Bundestag elections against SPD leader Gerhard Schroeder. Ruettgers was then elected Vice Chairman of the CDU/CSU Bundestag group, but soon decided to continue his political career at the state level in his native NRW, although he remained actively involved in the national leadership of the CDU as national Vice Chairman. NRW State Leadership: In 1999, Ruettgers was elected as chairman of the NRW CDU, and in 2000 he ran a promising state election campaign against then-Minister-President Wolfgang Clement (SPD), but lost because the election took place in the wake of the 1999/2000 party financing scandal around former Chancellor Kohl. Although Ruettgers had nothing to do with this scandal, his former close association with Kohl ruined his election chances. The CDU remained in opposition, with Ruettgers as opposition leader from 2000-2005, before taking over as Minister-President on June 22, 2005. ¶14. (U) This message was coordinated with Embassy Berlin. BOYSE