Wolfgang Schaeuble,Germany's new finance minister

Schaeuble, 67, will have to keep the situation under control while also making room for tax cuts promised by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, named on Saturday as Germany's new finance minister, is a wheelchair-bound, veteran conservative politician with an unenviable new job.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy and once a byword for fiscal prudence, is in the red to the tune of around 1.5 trillion euros (2.3 trillion dollars), some 20,000 euros for each citizen.

With the global recession pushing export-dependent Germany into its worst slowdown since World War II, the government is this year on course to spend 50 billion euros more than it takes in.

It already spends tens of billions in interest payments on its debts each year, and will be forced to borrow hundreds of billions of euros more over the next few years.

This will put it in breach of EU deficit rules for years to come, rules that Germany was instrumental in creating under former chancellor Helmut Kohl, a one-time close ally of Schaeuble's.

Schaeuble, 67, will have to keep the situation under control while also making room for tax cuts promised by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU and her new coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

He will also have to find extra cash for a sharply rising social security bill, to shore up Germany's creaking health care system, for education and to pay the pensions of the country's growing ranks of retirees.

Also waiting in his in-tray will be proposed reforms of the international financial system, with Merkel keen for Berlin to leave its imprint and to re-order things the German way.

A book published this year by Schaeuble on what the world can learn from the financial crisis indicates that he is already on the same page as his boss.

GERMANY'S PARTNERS HOPE OF LESS ABRASIVE SCHAEUBLE

Germany's international partners will be hoping that Schaeuble will be less abrasive than his predecessor as finance minister, Peer Steinbrueck, whose quick wit and sharp tongue often landed him in hot water.

Steinbrueck slammed Britain's stimulus measures as "crass Keynesianism", and became something of a hate figure in the Swiss press for his attacks on the Alpine country's traditions of banking secrecy.

But Germany's partners would be wrong to expect the stubborn and combative Schaeuble to be a walkover.

The son of another conservative politician, Schaeuble first made a name for himself under Kohl, holding different ministerial positions as well as being his chief of staff and one-time designated successor.

But he was caught up in a deeply damaging party funding scandal that shattered Kohl's reputation, leading to a period in the political wilderness before a comeback in 2002.

Three years later, under Merkel, Schaeuble was given the job of interior minister, a job that saw him criticised by civil liberties groups for tightening security in response to the threat of extremist attacks.

Schaeuble was born in Freiburg in southwestern Germany in 1942, the son of another conservative politician. Left disabled after being shot by a mentally ill man in 1990, he is married to an economist and has four children.