Merkel is about to bid farewell to politics, the end of an era

Xiang Changhe (International Studies Scholar)

  With the German general election in late September, Chancellor Merkel, who has been in power for 16 years, is about to bid farewell to the political arena.

As a highly respected female politician on the European and world stage, Merkel's departure means the curtain call of a German political legend and the end of an era.

  How to sum up Merkel's 16 years?

Not long ago, the German "Der Spiegel" magazine used "almost a great prime minister" to make a conclusion, and the evaluation was extremely high.

  Merkel was not born to be "nearly great", and was not a "dark horse" in politics from the beginning.

Merkel, the daughter of a priest, grew up in East Germany and became a physicist. Her first half of her life was dealing with numbers, curves, and bottles in the laboratory.

Merkel's thrilling political career began in 1990, when the Berlin Wall just fell.

She put an end to her research experience at the East German Academy of Sciences and stepped into the political arena.

Thanks to the favor of Kohl, the "father of reunification" in Germany, Merkel has made steady progress and soon reached the top of the German political arena, until eventually becoming prime minister.

  Many people believe that Merkel's administration was an accident in history: a woman from East Germany wanted to help the West through a major crisis.

Merkel has been in power for 16 years and has dealt with one crisis after another: the global financial crisis, the European debt crisis, the refugee crisis, the Ukrainian crisis, and the anti-epidemic crisis.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on this: For Germany, Merkel is a "prime minister of crisis"; for Europe, she is an "anchor of turbulent times", which is quite pertinent.

  In 2009, the global financial crisis spread from the United States to Europe. In the face of the "wolf is coming" of public opinion and the loud clamor from the business community, the Merkel administration stood still for a long time.

But she quickly entered the role to understand the intricate information and analysis of the financial world. After observation and research, the Merkel government announced a series of economic stimulus plans, with a total investment of up to 50 billion euros for public foundations. Unlike the United States and the United Kingdom who simply rescued financial companies in terms of facility construction, tax cuts and subsidies, the focus of German measures is to ensure employment, stabilize the real economy, and strengthen financial supervision.

The Merkel government introduced the legendary "old-for-new subsidy" to increase short-term jobs, thereby buffering the impact of the financial crisis on the real economy.

Although Germany's GDP fell by 5.7% in 2009, employment did not collapse.

Germany became the first country in the Western world to get out of the crisis, successfully establishing Merkel's reputation as a "crisis manager".

  Then, the European debt crisis that started in Greece hit the European Union.

At that time, Britain and the United States, which had always regarded the euro as their opponent, joined forces, and the English-language media, which dominated world public opinion, sang the euro in unison.

In the face of cynicism, Merkel has remained unmoved, insisting on linking the rescue with financial discipline, so that people who want to repay their debts repeatedly "tick their teeth."

In the end, Merkel led Europe through the "darkest moment of the euro", her reputation reached its peak, and she did her part to become the leader of Europe's "who is it".

  However, the refugee crisis that broke out in 2015 caused Merkel to encounter political "Waterloo".

At 6 o’clock in the morning on September 2 of that year, on a beach near Bodrum, a resort in southern Turkey, the photographer pressed the shutter when facing a small corpse. The child in the picture was named Ailan. After the pictures of Ailan "prone" on the beach shocked the world, Merkel broke the habit of cautious and wait-and-see decision-making.

On September 4, Merkel gave an order, and a large number of thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary set foot on German soil as they wished.

The surging tide of refugees caused dissatisfaction and opposition among the domestic people and some EU member states. Germany fell into political divisions and populist parties took the opportunity to rise.

Merkel's above-mentioned decision completely changed her term of office as prime minister. Her long-standing high approval rate dropped sharply, and she was even forced to give up her position as party chairman ahead of time.

  However, Merkel has repeatedly stated that she "does not regret" the decision to open the door to admit refugees.

As the pastor's daughter, accepting and helping thousands of refugees embodies her benevolent nature. In the choice between "emotion" and "reason", she firmly chose the former.

  In diplomacy, the two major crises that Merkel has encountered are the Ukraine crisis and the Trump crisis.

In the former, on the one hand, Merkel stood with the West and sanctioned Russia to punish him for allowing Crimea to enter Russia; on the other hand, Merkel insisted on dialogue with Russia.

Putin has been her diplomatic opponent and partner for the entire 16 years of Merkel's administration.

Merkel can speak Russian, Putin can speak German, and the two can chat in each other's mother tongue.

As a person representing the West in negotiations with Russia, Merkel has been talking on the phone with Moscow time and time again, criticizing, admonishing and requesting. Merkel also visited Russia as she stepped down.

  As the leader of the Western camp, Merkel's biggest embarrassment in diplomacy was Trump, who refused to shake hands with her in public.

Reluctantly, Merkel expressed the feeling that Europe must rely on itself while being patient.

The Trump administration has been talking about the "North Stream-2" Russia-Europe natural gas pipeline project, and even resorted to sanctions. After Merkel's persevering efforts, it finally reached a compromise with the Biden administration who succeeded Trump.

When Merkel is about to leave office, the construction of the "Beixi-2" pipeline is finally completed, which can be regarded as a diplomatic explanation.

  The last crisis that Merkel dealt with was the fight against the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

She is like an "grandmother" to persuade people to wear masks and not to gather together, but health services belong to the local government in Germany, and Merkel's actions are limited.

In general, Germany's anti-epidemic level is in the upper reaches of Western countries.

  Merkel bid farewell to the political arena, an era came to an end, Germany and even Europe temporarily fell into the embarrassment of "no leader".

In 16 years in power, Merkel's approval rate has always been above 50%, with a peak of 86%.

There is no doubt that Merkel is a legend, she left the Chancellery, people will miss her.