Jürgen Rüttgers (born 26 June 1951) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as the 9th Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2005 to 2010. Education Rüttgers was born in Cologne. He holds degrees in Law and History from the University of Cologne and a Dr. Jur. (Ph.D.) in Law (1979). He became a member of K.D.St. V. Rappoltstein Köln, a Catholic student fraternity that is member of the Cartellverband. Political career Career in national politics Rüttgers was a Member of the German Bundestag from 1987 until 2000. In 1991 he succeeded Friedrich Bohl as First Secretary of the parliamentary group, in this position assisting the parliamentary group's chairman Wolfgang Schäuble. Rüttgers served as Federal Minister for Education, Science, Research and Technology in Chancellor Helmut Kohl's fifth cabinet from 1994 to 1998. During his time as minister, he was – together with Luigi Berlinguer (Italy), Claude Allegre (France), and Baroness Tessa Blackstone (United Kingdom) – one of the heads of the "Sorbonne declaration", the joint declaration on harmonisation of the architecture of the European higher education system, on 25 May 1998. That was the starting point of the so-called "Bologna process". He also successfully introduced a law under which online providers can be prosecuted for offering a venue for content illegal in Germany – such as child pornography or Nazi propaganda – if they do so knowingly and it is "technically possible and reasonable" to prevent it. Also, the law made Germany the first country to set rules for so-called digital signatures and give them the status of a legal document. Between 1998 and 2000, Rüttgers served as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, again under Schäuble's leadership. Career in state politics In 2000, Rüttgers succeeded Norbert Blüm as chairman of the CDU in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As head of the party in Germany's most populous state, he commanded considerable influence, especially with its grassroots. He also became the party's group leader in the state parliament. In this capacity, he notably opposed the takeover of Mannesmann by the British telecommunications company Vodafone in 2000, one of the largest-ever company takeovers worldwide. Amid the revelations of the CDU donations scandal in early 2000, Rüttgers – who ran as the party's candidate in a crucial state election in North Rhine-Wesphalia that year – was one of the few leading figures who remained loyal to