This summer, as the pandemic eases and Europe opens again for business and pleasure, the Merkel era will end. After her 16-year reign as Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel deserves admiration and praise on many counts.

When she made history in 2005 as the first woman to be elected chancellor, unemployment stood at just over 11 per cent, and Germany was widely disparaged as the “sick man of Europe”. Doctoral students on both sides of the Atlantic were writing dissertations trying to uncover the roots of Germany’s malaise and were asking what it was about the country that made it so hard to reform. Four Merkel cabinets later, unemployment stands at 6 per cent (and would be even lower if not for the pandemic), and no one doubts Germany’s political, financial, and economic leadership of the European Union.

Foreign Policy