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Washington (AP) - Before the end of the term of office of Chancellor Angela Merkel, the reputation of the German government in numerous countries is at a peak according to a survey.
The US institute Gallup announced that in 18 of 29 countries examined, the approval values for the federal government were higher than ever or at the level of previous record values.
In 25 of these countries, a majority of those surveyed said they were positive about the work of the federal government.
Accordingly, the highest approval ratings - all records - were in the Netherlands (87 percent), Finland (84 percent) and Norway (81 percent).
Merkel no longer wants to run as the top candidate of the CDU in the 2021 federal election.
This year, Gallup interviewed around 1000 people by phone in each of these countries or territories (highest approval ratings first): Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Albania, Spain, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Slovenia , Australia, Italy, Mauritius, Malta, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal, USA, Ecuador, Taiwan, Cyprus, Russia and Iran.
According to Gallup, the margin of error was between 2.8 and 5.3 percentage points.
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Gallup said the mean approval rating (median value) in the 29 countries surveyed was 62 percent, compared to 59 percent last year.
For comparison: According to Gallup, the mean approval rating for the US government of the elected US President Donald Trump was only 18 percent this year in 29 countries examined.
It was largely the same group of countries, with one exception: when asked about the image of the US government, Germans were also asked (but not Americans), when asked about the image of the federal government, Americans were also asked (but not Germans).
Gallup said that in the last full year of Trump's tenure, approval ratings for the US government in 20 of the 29 countries examined had deteriorated or remained the same.
In Germany, the Trump administration's reputation fell to an all-time low.
It is now at the same level there as in Iran.
Gallup said that only 6 percent of respondents in Germany said they were satisfied with the work of the US government - as many as in Iran.
In Trump's first year in office in 2017, the value in Germany was still 22 percent, in the two years after that it was 17 and 12 percent.
Only in Iceland were they lower than in Germany and Iran (5 percent).
The Trump administration achieved the best scores in Albania: 56 percent were satisfied with their work.
In Russia, approval ratings rose from 8 percent in 2017 to 18 percent.
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Republican Trump lost the November 3rd election to Democrat Joe Biden.
Biden has promised to improve relations with traditional US allies immediately after his inauguration on January 20.
Trump had repeatedly attacked Germany particularly sharply and criticized Berlin's lack of defense spending.
Most recently, he had announced the withdrawal of around a third of US soldiers from the Federal Republic, which Congress wants to block initially.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201217-99-736009 / 2