counter the largest financial and economic crisis in post-War history. From 2005, Steinbrück also served as deputy chairman of the SPD. Ahead of the 2009 elections, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier included Steinbrück in his shadow cabinet of 10 women and eight men for the Social Democrats’ campaign to unseat incumbent Angela Merkel as chancellor. In a joint article in the Financial Times on 14 December 2010, Steinbrück and Steinmeier proposed to solve the European debt crisis with "a combination of a haircut for debt holders, debt guarantees for stable countries and the limited introduction of European-wide bonds in the medium term, accompanied by more aligned fiscal policies." In February 2011, Steinmeier proposed Steinbrück as a candidate to lead the European Central Bank. Candidate for Federal Chancellor, 2012–2013 On 9 December 2012 an extraordinary National Assembly of the SPD elected Steinbrück, with 93.45 percent of the votes, as candidate for Federal Chancellor, to run in the 2013 federal elections against Angela Merkel. Sigmar Gabriel, the party's chairman at the time, who had also been considered a possible candidate, said the leadership had agreed to nominate Steinbrück after Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the party's parliamentary leader, withdrew from the contest. During his election campaign, Steinbrück promised to introduce rent controls, to raise taxes and use those funds for education and infrastructure. He also accused Merkel of showing a lack of passion for Europe in the euro crisis because she was brought up in communist East Germany. In the run-up to the elections, he criticized Merkel's support for hardline austerity measures in indebted eurozone countries and reiterated his support for the euro, saying that its demise would "throw back European unification by 20 to 30 years" and result in currency appreciation that would "destroy any business." He also travelled to Greece for meetings with President Karolos Papoulias, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras and PASOK chairman Evangelos Venizelos. On foreign policy issues, Steinbrück criticized Merkel for not joining Germany's allies in their military efforts against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Also, he promised he would radically curtail German arms exports to countries such as Saudi Arabia. In three stages from mid-May 2013, Steinbrück announced the twelve members of his shadow cabinet, including Cornelia Füllkrug-Weitzel, Gesche Joost, Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, Christiane Krajewski, Karl Lauterbach, Matthias Machnig, Thomas Oppermann, Florian Pronold, Oliver Scheytt, Klaus Wiesehügel, Manuela Schwesig and Brigitte Zypries. He signalled his support for Jürgen