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Minister in hospital

May 9, 2010

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was hospitalized on Sunday in Brussels after an apparent allergic reaction to a medication. He was unable to take part in an emergency meeting on Europe's debt crisis.

https://p.dw.com/p/NJwF
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble
Schaeuble's poor health comes at a crisis point for the EUImage: AP

Schaeuble's spokesman, Michael Offer, described Schaeuble as "conscious" and "doing well under the circumstances" in a statement. He also said it was suspected that the allergic reaction had been caused by a medication that Schaeuble had taken for the first time on Saturday.

Schaeuble's absence from the critical European Union talks forced Berlin to fly Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere to Brussels to take his place.

When he arrived in the Belgian capital, de Maiziere said he had spoken to Schaeuble and that he was "so well now that he presented to me his line of negotiation" on the question of how to shore of the euro.

Schaeuble has been confined to a wheelchair since he was shot in the back by a mentally unstable man at a campaign event in 1990. He underwent a routine operation in April, from which he has reportedly not entirely recovered.

hf/AFP/dpa
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar