Norbert Walter-Borjans (born 17 September 1952), also known by the nickname NoWaBo, is a German economist and politician of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

(SPD) who served as co-leader of the SPD (alongside

Saskia Esken Saskia Christina Esken (' Hofer; born 28 August 1961) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as co-leader of the party since being 2019 Social Democratic Party of Ger ...

) from

2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...

to 2021. He served as State Minister of Finance of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

from 2010 until 2017.

Early life and education

The son of a carpenter, Walter-Borjans was born 1952 in the West German city of

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

and studied economics at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

and reached a PhD.

Political career

From 1991 until 1998, Walter-Borjans worked as spokesperson of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, then led by Minister-President

Johannes Rau Johannes Rau (; 16 January 193127 January 2006) was a German politician who served as President of Germany from 1999 to 2004. A member of the Social Democratic Party, he previously served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia fro ...

. From 2010 to 2017 Walter-Borjans served as State Minister of Finance of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

of Minister-President

Hannelore Kraft Hannelore Kraft (née Külzhammer, 12 June 1961) is a German politician. She served as the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2010 until 2017. Kraft was the first woman to serve as head of government of this state and was the thi ...

. In this capacity, he was one of the state's representatives in the Bundesrat, where he served on the Finance Committee. During his time in office, the state government – as main shareholder –, the German government and

Helaba Helaba, short for Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen, is a commercial bank with core regions in Hesse and Thuringia, Germany offering financial services to companies, banks, institutional investors and the public sector, both within Germany and interna ...

agreed to divide up the asset of ailing

WestLB Westdeutsche Landesbank (, abbreviated as WestLB) was a major German bank based in Düsseldorf, mainly controlled by the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It was created in 1969 by the merger of two predecessor entities respectively for th ...

and cover any losses during the winding-down process. On Walter-Borjans's initiative, the state government on several occasions resorted to buying Swiss account data from whistle-blowers to pursue German tax dodgers. In the negotiations to form a ''

Grand Coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political party, political parties of opposing political spectrum, political ideologies unite in a coalition government. Causes of a grand coali ...

'' of

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

's Christian Democrats ( CDU together with the Bavarian

CSU CSU may refer to: Universities and university systems United States * Columbia Southern University, in Orange Beach, Alabama * California State University system * Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado * Connecticut State Univers ...

) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections, Walter-Borjans was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on financial policies and the national budget, led by

Wolfgang Schäuble Wolfgang Schäuble (; 18 September 1942 – 26 December 2023) was a German politician whose political career spanned more than five decades. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was the longest-serving member of any democratic G ...

and

Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born 14 June 1958) is a German politician who served as the Chancellor of Germany from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice-Chancellor of Ge ...

. Together with

, Walter-Borjans announced his candidacy for the

2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election The 2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election took place in the autumn of 2019 to elect the new leadership of the Social Democratic Party of Germany following the resignation of the Andrea Nahles on 3 June 2019. Although the lead ...

; the duo was soon endorsed by the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia, the party's largest chapter, and its chairman Sebastian Hartmann. as well as the SPD youth organization and its leader Kevin Kühnert, which account for some 80,000 of the 430,000 SPD members. The November 2019 run-off was won by Esken and Walter-Borjans. Walter-Borjans was nominated by his party as delegate to the

Federal Convention The Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. While the convention was initially intended to revise the league of states and devise the first system of federal government under the Articles of Conf ...

for the purpose of electing the

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially titled the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international correspondence; the official English title is President of the F ...

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

Other activities

Corporate boards

* NRW.BANK, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2012–2017) * Portigon, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2012–2017) *

RAG AG RAG AG, formerly Ruhrkohle AG, is the largest German coal mining corporation. The company headquarters are in Essen in the Ruhr area. The company was founded on 27 November 1968, consolidating several coal mining corporations into the Ruhrkohl ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2012–2017) *

KfW The KfW, which together with its subsidiaries DEG, KfW IPEX-Bank and FuB forms the KfW Bankengruppe ("banking group"), is a German state-owned investment and development bank, based in Frankfurt. As of 2014, it is the world's largest national ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Supervisory Directors (2010–2017)

Non-profit organizations

* ''

Deutschlandradio Deutschlandradio (DLR; ) is a national German public radio broadcaster. History ''Deutschlandfunk'' was originally a West German news radio targeting listeners within West Germany as well as in neighbouring countries, ''Deutschlandfunk Kultur'' ...

'', Member of the Broadcasting Council (2012–2017)Wilfried Goebels (12 November 2012)
Finanzminister Walter-Borjans ist Multifunktionär in Aufsichtsräten
''

General-Anzeiger The ''General-Anzeiger'' is a regional daily newspaper based in the city of Bonn, the former West German capital in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The paper was first published in April 1888. In addition to the city and i ...

''. * Verkehrsclub Deutschland, Founding Member

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walter-Borjans Living people 1952 births People from Krefeld Chairmen of the Social Democratic Party of Germany University of Bonn alumni University of Cologne alumni