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ANGELA MERKEL

Five key moments that shaped Angela Merkel’s remarkable career

Often called the world's most powerful woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is on her last lap as leader of Europe's top economy. Here are 5 defining moments in her career.

Five key moments that shaped Angela Merkel's remarkable career
Photo: Merkel shaking hands with mentor Helmut Kohl on December 15th, 1991. Photo: DPA

Kohl’s ‘girl’ turns on mentor

Merkel, a pastor’s daughter and scientist who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, only became politically active in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell.

She briefly served as a deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected East German government, before winning election in 1990 to the reunified German parliament as a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

Then-chancellor Helmut Kohl, who gave Merkel the patronising nickname “das Mädchen” (the girl), named her minister for women and youth in 1991, setting off her career.

When Kohl got bogged down in a political slush fund scandal, it was Merkel who told him it was time to go.

She was elected CDU party chief in 2000 with more than 95 percent of the vote and in 2005 became Germany’s first woman chancellor. 

Nuclear power? Nein danke.

Merkel stunned the world when, after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima reactor meltdown, she reversed her pro-nuclear stance and announced that German atomic reactors would be phased out by 2022.

Long called the “climate chancellor”, she has also pushed Germany’s energy transition, which has ramped up wind and solar power and aims to meet 80 percent of demand with renewables by 2050.

However, Merkel’s green credentials have been bruised because Germany’s continued strong reliance on dirty coal means it will miss its 2020 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Merkel has also been called the “car chancellor” for her strong lobbying  for Germany’s powerful auto sector that has been hit by the “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal and a wave of urban driving bans for diesel vehicles.

Eurozone’s ‘Madame Non’

All eyes turned to Merkel when, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Greece in 2010 plunged into a sovereign debt crisis and the survival of the eurozone itself seemed in doubt.

Merkel and her then finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble demanded painful budget cuts and tax hikes in Greece in return for backing three international rescue packages worth more than 300 billion euros ($320 billion).

The tough stance saw her vilified as Europe’s heartless austerity queen and  caricatured in SS uniform.

Merkel resisted calls to forgive Athens’ massive debt, a position that in France earned her the nickname “Madame Non”.

Refugee crisis? ‘We can do it’

If many saw her as heartless during the eurozone crisis, they condemned her as too soft, naive or moralistic in the refugee and migrant crisis.

At the height of the influx, in September 2015, she opted against shutting the German-Austrian border to the thousands crossing a day, about half from war-torn Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the mass influx, which would top one million people, started unsettling  many Germans, she kept insisting that “Wir schaffen das” (“we can do it”). 

Merkel has since backed efforts to tighten asylum rules and shutter the  EU’s outer borders.

But the far-right and anti-immigration party that has emerged since, the 
Alternative for Germany (AfD), insists that “Merkel must go”.

2017-18: Political twilight?

The AfD has since entered the German parliament and all state assemblies, coarsening the tone of German politics from the opposition benches.

Merkel’s CDU, like other mainstream parties, lost millions of votes to the AfD in September 2017 polls, vastly complicating coalition building efforts.

It took Merkel’s conservatives half a year to cobble together an unhappy “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats (SPD) that has only a thin  majority, and the alliance has been rocked by infighting since.

Squabbles centred on immigration between Merkel and her Bavarian Interior Minister Horst Seehofer have twice brought the alliance to the brink of collapse.

The bickering in Berlin has in turn damaged the mainstream parties in two October regional polls, in Bavaria and Hesse.

In the clearest sign yet that she is preparing for her eventual succession, Merkel has said she will not stand again for reelection as CDU leader in December and will step down as chancellor when her current mandate ends in 2021.

SEE ALSO: Merkel will step down as chancellor in 2021

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POLITICS

Germany’s ‘traffic light’ parties sign coalition agreement in Berlin

Two and a half months after the federal elections on September 26th, the three parties of the incoming 'traffic light' coalition - the SPD, Greens and FDP - have formally signed their coalition agreement at a public ceremony in Berlin.

Traffic light coalition
Germany's next Chancellor Olaf Scholz (front, left) on stage in Berlin with other members of the new coalition government, and their signed agreement. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

The move marks the final stage of a 10-week week process that saw the three unlikely bedfellows forming a first-of-its-kind partnership in German federal government. 

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz is now due to be elected Chancellor of Germany on Wednesday and his newly finalised cabinet will be sworn in on the same day. This will mark the end of the 16-year Angela Merkel era following the veteran leader’s decision to retire from politics this year. 

Speaking at the ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday morning, Scholz declared it “a morning when we set out for a new government.”

He praised the speed at which the three parties had concluded their talks and said the fight against the Covid crisis would first require the full strength of the new coalition.

Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck, who is set to head up a newly formed environment and energy ministry, said the goal was “a government for the people of Germany”.

He stressed that the new government would face the joint challenge of bringing climate neutrality and prosperity together in Europe’s largest industrial nation and the world’s fourth largest economy.

Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock spoke of a coalition agreement “on the level of reality, on the level of social reality”.

FDP leader Christian Lindner, who managed to secure the coveted role of Finance Minister in the talks, declared that now was the “time for action”.

“We are not under any illusions,” he told people gathered at the ceremony. “These are great challenges we face.”

Scholz, Habeck and Lindner are scheduled to hold  a press conference before midday to answer questions on the goals of the new government.

‘New beginnings’

Together with the Greens and the FDP, Scholz’s SPD managed in a far shorter time than expected to forge a coalition that aspires to make Germany greener and fairer.

The Greens became the last of the three parties to agree on the contents of the 177-page coalition agreement an in internal vote on Monday, following approval from the SPD and FDP’s inner ranks over the weekend.

“I want the 20s to be a time of new beginnings,” Scholz told Die Zeit weekly, declaring an ambition to push forward “the biggest industrial modernisation which will be capable of stopping climate change caused by mankind”.

Putting equality rhetoric into practice, he unveiled the country’s first gender-balanced cabinet on Monday, with women in key security portfolios.

“That corresponds to the society we live in – half of the power belongs to women,” said Scholz, who describes himself as a “feminist”.

READ ALSO: Scholz names Germany’s first gender-equal cabinet

The centre-left’s return to power in Europe’s biggest economy could shift the balance on a continent still reeling from Brexit and with the other major player, France, heading into presidential elections in 2022.

But even before it took office, Scholz’s “traffic-light” coalition – named after the three parties’ colours – was already given a baptism of fire in the form of a fierce fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Balancing act
 
Dubbed “the discreet” by left-leaning daily TAZ, Scholz, 63, is often described as austere or robotic.
 
But he also has a reputation for being a meticulous workhorse.
 
An experienced hand in government, Scholz was labour minister in Merkel’s first coalition from 2007 to 2009 before taking over as vice chancellor and finance minister in 2015.
 
Yet his three-party-alliance is the first such mix at the federal level, as the FDP is not a natural partner for the SPD or the Greens.

Keeping the trio together will require a delicate balancing act taking into account the FDP’s business-friendly leanings, the SPD’s social equality instincts and the Greens’ demands for sustainability.

Under their coalition deal, the parties have agreed to secure Germany’s path to carbon neutrality, including through huge investments in sustainable energy.

They also aim to return to a constitutional no-new-debt rule – suspended during the pandemic – by 2023.

FDP cabinets
Volker Wissing (l-r), FDP General Secretary und designated Transport Minister, walks alongside Christian Lindner, FDP leader and designated Finance Minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), the incoming Education Minister, and Marco Buschmann, the incoming Justice Minister. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

READ ALSO: 

Incoming foreign minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens has vowed to put human rights at the centre of German diplomacy.

She has signalled a more assertive stance towards authoritarian regimes like China and Russia after the commerce-driven pragmatism of Merkel’s 16 years in power.

Critics have accused Merkel of putting Germany’s export-dependent economy first in international dealings.

Nevertheless she is still so popular at home that she would probably have won a fifth term had she sought one.

The veteran politician is also widely admired abroad for her steady hand guiding Germany through a myriad of crises.

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