Schaeuble Leaves, But His Ideas Are Here to Stay

Wolfgang Schaeuble was the euro zone's longest-serving finance minister until the realities of German coalition-building sent him to the parliament speaker's post last month. His legacy, laid out in a recent interview and a leaked document, should be taken seriously. Even without him, Germany will continue to hold back support for sweeping reforms of the euro area's fiscal management, but will try to ensure its tougher policing.

Throughout his eight-year tenure, Schaeuble cut a perplexing figure: A self-confessed European federalist who put the brakes on closer financial integration. His recent interview with the Financial Times and a German government policy "non-paper" for Eurogroup colleagues, obtained by Bloomberg last month, show that he still is happy to ignore the contradiction between his views. Here's how he described it in the interview: