of Trustees Deutsche Telekom Stiftung, Member of the Board of Trustees Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), Member of the Board Political positions During his political career, Rüttgers proved to be a conservative on social issues such as immigration. He also positioned himself as a "workers' leader" on economics, defending labor rights and opposing business demands for deregulation of the economy. Unlike many in his party at the time, he was also in favor of expanding day care for young children and supported all-day schools. Following the CDU's performance in the 2005 federal elections and the formation of the first government under Chancellor Angela Merkel, Rüttgers blamed her campaign for talking “too much about flat tax and not enough about the people.” Instead, he called on the party to shed its “capitalist” image. In his 1993 book Dinosaurs of Democracy, Rüttgers attacked Germany's main parties and the government for being unwilling to decentralise political power to ordinary people. Controversy Rüttgers is widely known for his views on immigration and the much-discussed phrase "Kinder statt Inder" ("children instead of Indians") which was a media interpretation of "Statt Inder an die Computer müssen unsere Kinder an die Computer" ("instead of Indians in front of computers, our children must be in front of computers"), during an election campaign (which he eventually lost) at a time when there was a parallel nationwide discussion about whether or not immigration rules should be liberalised on behalf of attracting more highly qualified foreign academics to the German labor market. In response to Rüttgers's much-discussed phrase Kinder statt Inder'', Germany's Green Party overwhelmed his Internet mailbox with thousands of messages. The Internet attack was the first of its kind in German politics. Recognition Honors and awards 1997 – Georg Schulhoff Award 1997 – Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 2004 – In collaboration with the Ministers of Education Luigi Berlinguer (Italy), Claude Allègre (France) and Baroness Tessa Blackstone (Great Britain), Jürgen Rüttgers was one of the heads of the Sorbonne Declaration, with the aim of “harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system“. For their achievements in European education and research, Rüttgers and his colleagues received an honorary doctorate from Roma Tre University in Rome in 2004. 2004 – European Craft Award 2007 – Rident Red Tape Award of the DBB civil servant union and tariff union 2008 – Commander of the