Often referred to as the Chancellor of Europe, Angela Merkel is set to take over as German Chancellor after 16 years in power. To his supporters, he led a stable Germany through several global crises, providing stable leadership and having a ‘unified’ Germany. On the other hand, critics would argue that he lacked the bold vision that led to a fragmented political landscape.
However, from the outset, Merkel’s career has been full of obstacles, a trait that dominated her entire political career.
She was elected Chancellor of Germany in November 2005, when female political leaders, although not uncommon in Scandinavia, were hardly common in Germany. Among German leaders, she was full of discrepancies, a woman, a scientist, and a product of East Germany.
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Soon after, the 2008 financial crisis hit Europe and America badly. Stock markets around the world collapsed, missing billions of dollars in market capitalization. While European countries were hit hard, Merkel’s Germany blossomed during this. It introduced economic stimulus packages to stave off a long-term recession in Germany. While most of the nation of Europe was stabilizing, Germany had low unemployment and a strong manufacturing base.
“Her greatest strength is her consistency, but on the other hand, it is also her lack of political imagination. She is certainly not politically creative and tends to stick to a financially conservative rulebook,” says Dr. Amir Ali , who teaches political science at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University and is the author of the book “Brexit and Liberal Democracy”.
As a major force within the EU, Merkel’s career has been marked by one of the biggest ‘reforms’ in Europe: Brexit. Britain decided to break ties with the European Union after supporters said EU membership was disrupting Britain’s trade ties outside the trading bloc.
Since Brexit, the UK has seen the resignation of two prime ministers – David Cameron and Theresa May. While an unstable Britain headed for a ‘domestic cultural revolution’, Merkel, a head of the European Union, remained stagnant.
His serious behavior, which often goes unnoticed by experts, sets him apart from the current trend of populism. With a current trend where Western leaders fall prey to ‘unfair’ populists like Trump or Johnson, Merkel’s delivery is toneless, as if she were trying to persuade her audience to shift their attention elsewhere. . He is one of those leaders who exudes rationality and pragmatism.
To establish his unshakeable nature, Amir Ali cited Merkel’s visit to the UK while David Cameron was still the British Prime Minister. “Merkel was addressing a joint press conference with Cameron. One of the members of the British press asked her a question on her relationship with British PM David Cameron and she suggested that she seemed to be ‘the one for him’ ‘Naughty nephew’,” says Ali.
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“Cameron found it very amusing and when he began to laugh he was also pleased with the analogy. Merkel, on the other hand, maintained her serious demeanor and almost rejected the comparison in a serious discussion of Anglo-German relations,” says Ali .
In addition to her pragmatism and Protestant work ethic, she was known for her resentment against multiculturalism. He insisted that the multicultural approach had failed in Germany, leading to a debate about immigration in a country that is home to some 4 million Muslims.
Her career also saw other major upheavals, including the Euro crisis and the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, but she managed to get away without ‘radical change’. “Merkel’s greatest strength has been her consistency and the stability she has given to Germany. It is interesting to see that her reluctance to have the share of voters attracted by the far right has not gone against her,” Ali said.
Political commentators say Merkel embodies a fundamental decency, unlike many leaders of the time. I
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