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After the German elections on September 26, when Merkel finally steps down after 16 years as chancellor, the European Union will say goodbye to its longest-serving head of government. 

Put plainly, Merkel's been a major player at the EU level for a long time. She has seen and handled her fair share of crises in the bloc, and she's ultimately helped keep the EU together in some of its most divisive hours.

Yet despite always pulling for Team EU at the end of the day, Merkel has often only taken action after evading decision-making for as long as feasibly possible. And lest anyone doubt how definitive this style of hers is, there's a slang German verb for being indecisive and not doing anything: it's called "merkeln."

While Merkel has been a dependable rhetorical advocate for the ideological value of the EU, many of her decisions at the EU level were the stuff of feet-dragging, last-minute turnarounds or even of no other option left.

That doesn't mean they weren't uncontroversial or even sometimes bold. During the eurozone and Greek financial crisis, Merkel eventually countered both her conservative party's dogma of tight spending controls and German popular sentiment to bailout the Greek government. But only after first insisting that such a move was off-the-table and stringing out action until the whole bloc teetered on the brink of a system-shattering debt default.

The harsh austerity conditions of the Greek bailouts and aid packages to other struggling southern Mediterranean nations also led to criticism that Merkel was imposing the "German way" on other countries — not exactly a sentiment that fostered EU solidarity. I remember conversations in my own Spanish family that were tinged with resentment over Germans continuing to benefit from the low costs in Spain on their package beach vacations while Spaniards were seeing public spending slashed and unemployment skyrocket. 

Then, in 2015, when millions of Syrians asylum-seekers sought safety in Europe, Merkel made the politically courageous and morally correct decision not to close Germany's borders. But this was still reactive, occurring only after attempts to agree upon an EU-wide refugee distribution system had failed and overwhelmed EU nations like Hungary allowed tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to travel onward to Germany's southern border.

Most recently, her yes to "coronabonds," or debt shared at the EU level — anathema to Merkel throughout her time as chancellor — came only after many no's that initially persisted even in the face of an unprecedented pandemic-spurred economic shutdown.

As a conservative, Merkel is by definition set on maintaining the status quo. She's unwilling to take a step forward until she's got her back up against a wall. But while this has helped keep the EU lumbering along so far, it is no longer enough. 

The next German chancellor needs to provide proactive, visionary leadership if the bloc's current and future challenges are to be met. And while some Germans may feel uneasy for historical reasons about acting as a driver of European politics, it is important to remember there is a difference between power and leadership, and that many Europeans today see Berlin as their "go-to" capital. 

For the sake of the EU, the next German chancellor must be someone who isn't just on the team but can rally it. They need to be able to preempt challenges instead of reacting haphazardly to them, and the challenges are plenty.

With the climate crisis in full swing, failing to act boldly is not an option for a global political leader.

Russia's no-holds-barred attitude calls for someone who can anticipate and prepare for potential future standoffs, rather than someone who chooses to bypass its neighbor out of domestic energy interests and geopolitical wishful thinking. 

China's determination to entrench its global influence and a decidedly cool trans-Atlantic relationship means the EU must also position itself stronger and more independently, including by meeting defense spending targets.

Additionally, the bloc's internal fissures demand both more innovative and creative thinking about future political arrangements, perhaps even ones that move away from Merkel's consensus-at-all-costs approach when constitutionally possible. Last but not least, the next chancellor must communicate more passionately, selling EU successes and inspiring trust and excitement among its citizens, especially the younger generation.

These EU citizens include Germans, by the way. An April ECFR poll found a whopping 45% of Germans are either ambivalent about being an EU member or think it's a bad thing. The next German chancellor can start proactively building the EU future right at home.

Read more:

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-the-eu-doesnt-need-another-angela-merkel/a-59051221

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....

The menace begins. Banks start reporting problems, share prices collapse and the public is flooded with technical terms: Subprime. Interbank trading. Asset backed securities. Derivatives. Junk bonds. Then, more banks begin reporting problems. On Sept. 15, 2008, the Lehman Brothers investment bank in New York collapses, with catastrophic consequences for the financial industry all over the world.

Merkel seemed vexed, at a loss even, in the early stages of the crisis. She didn’t know exactly what was happening or how deep the crash might be. But she caught on quickly, feeding her intellect with information and analysis on the convolutions of the financial world, reading and spending many hours with experts. And then she suddenly emerged, up to speed with the new era.

In the United States, banks had sold real estate loans without sufficient collateral. The financial system had bundled them into products whose vulnerability hadn’t been immediately apparent. The packages were stored in many depots around the world, like mines waiting for a signal to detonate. Lehman was that signal.

A short time later, Germany’s Hypo Real Estate (HRE) also crashed. Late at night on Sept. 28, Merkel held a round of high-stakes negotiations with Josef Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank at the time, about the share the banks would accept in the default risk for HRE. Merkel demanded 10 billion euros. That’s too much, Ackermann countered. Merkel then said 9 billion, which Ackermann also declined. They reached a deal at 8.5 billion. A risk of 26.5 billion was to be borne by the government.

Many were nevertheless worried, and large cash notes became scarce in some places because people began hoarding money at home. On Oct. 5, Merkel stood in front of the cameras with Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück and assured the country that their deposits were safe. A 480-billion-euro bailout for the banks was quickly rushed through German parliament.

Merkel’s government then cushioned the consequences for the economy by introducing the country’s famous cash-for-clunkers scheme, a subsidy encouraging people to buy new cars, and by creating a government subsidy to pay workers who had been placed on furlough by their employers. Although gross domestic product slumped by 5.7 percent in 2009, unemployment did not spike.

That success established Merkel’s reputation as a capable crisis manager. But another effect was more decisive: The financial shock completely robbed the chancellor of her appetite for reform. She had already considered the Germans to be a fearful people, and now she didn’t want to impose any more burdens on the populace. Merkel, whose path to the Chancellery was paved with neoliberal notions, instead moved to expand the welfare state with a minimum wage, improved pensions for women who had temporarily left the labor market to raise children and parental leave benefits.

Read more: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/a-first-look-at-angela-merkel-s-legacy-the-era-of-missed-opportunities-a-3cdef2e3-e451-4e6b-91b5-c89f97acb9df

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This article in Der Spiegel is glib, full of clichés, anti-Putin and anti-China propaganda, while 92.7 per cent (or could it be 87.3?) of the global deceit, during Merkel's Chancellory, came (and still come) from the USA — and especially the US banking system which was let loose on the world by Bill Clinton's presidency as he was getting his duck plucked in the oval office... Whatever politely. Even before Clinton, the era of Thatcher and Reagan had already pushed workers into the dirt — all helped by the ubiquitous Rupert Murdoch spreading the Konservative Nuz... Soros was not far behind — as a "lefty-lover" who hates socialism so he can make money by speculating on currencies, the value of which he influences with his discreet media tentacles. Don't be fooled.

So, Merkel had to deal with a quantity of crap, including the various opinions of her advisors who in most cases would have misunderstood the global deceit and pushed their own slanted political views. In regard to Putin, Merkel had to understand that she would be pushed by the USA, to do their dirty work to damage Russia as much as possible, while knowing the real historical facts — which meant that in order to sell Mercs or BMWs in the US, one had to play "the game" — in this case appear to push the correct buttons, but, as no-one is looking, only doing it "half-way"...

Not only this, the French were as usual a bit aloof in their own ways, especially that little Sarkozy man, who was more deceitful than most. Too clever for his own boots and now believed to have been corrupt, Sarkozy would have been a handful for Merkel to circumvent. Then came Hollande-the-Bland, followed by Macronleon who sees himself as the "father of Europe" while not understanding why people protest in the street of Paris.

In the quicksands of the world politics, Merkel managed to keep Germany on top — and it is possibly why the next chancellor will follow with the same gymnastic routines, hopefully with a similar understand of the historical shenanigans.

The end of the war in Afghanistan, the refugee problem, maintaining a workforce during Covid-19, plus a rapidly accelerating global warming, added to the flux. As we all know (we all should), there are no easy solutions and what pleases some people will displease others, and the trick is to manage a majority of support. And there is the question of religions that still influence voters...

Meanwhile, the isolationist and sanction policies of the West against Russia, only helped Putin to maintain the "Russian Spirit" alive and well. 

But one has to acknowledge that in a short article, Der Spiegel cannot fully explore all the nuances of the Merkel German leadership...

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In the Tuesday speech, Merkel warned Germans against voting for the center-left Social Democrats party (SPD), ahead of the upcoming general election, which will be held on September 26.

Merkel said the choice was one between a “moderate” government or one with the SPD and the Green Party, which she said would accept support from the Left Party, Politico reported.

The outcome will be “either a government consisting of the SPD and the Greens, who accept support through the Left or at least don’t rule it out … or a government led by CDU and CSU under a Chancellor Armin Laschet, a government that leads our country into the future with moderation,” she said.

When members of the German parliament began shouting at the chancellor, who were reportedly agitated by her uncommon criticism of the SPD – her coalition partners since 2013 – she said “I’m only telling the truth.”

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/534170-angela-merkel-germany-spd/

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