Bodo Hombach

[1] Five years later, Hombach and team decided to fight the 1990 state election with a personalised campaign focused on the Rau himself, who had become deputy chairman of the national party in 1982.

In 1998, Hombach briefly joined Minister-President Wolfgang Clement's cabinet as State Minister for Economy and SME, Technology and Transport in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Indicative of this policy was the 'Schröder-Blair Paper' published under the title 'The way ahead for Europe's Social Democrats' and written by Hombach and his British counterpart Peter Mandelson.

", wrote today's Chairman of the Board of Directors of Axel Springer AG, Mathias Döpfner, in the 'Welt' newspaper in 1999 and stated: "However important Hombach's new job may be – it is as if a builder-owner swaps the architect just after the formwork for the foundation has been laid.

Hombach believes that freedom, political and economic independence and journalistic quality of the newspapers are the absolute prerequisites for the establishment of democratic structures in the former transformation countries of South-East Europe.

In April 2008, Hombach was appointed by Minister-President Jürgen Rüttgers as Deputy Chairman of the Commission for the Future of the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, chaired by Ralf Dahrendorf.

"The stability pact administration has been so well developed that it could take on the management of other EU Special Commissioners as well", is how Die Welt newspaper cited the Christian Social Union of Bavaria MP and Vice President of the European Parliament, Ingo Friedrich.