Angela Merkel: the smartest person in the room for almost two decades

German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Picture: Getty Images

Angela Merkel makes mistakes. When she does she admits them.

Germany was about to enter a harsh five day lock down over the Easter weekend. Industry groups and the population in general were critical. At the same time, Germany is being belted with second and third wave COVID-19 infections of the UK (Kent) type. Infection rates are at dangerous levels, around one per 100. Hospitals are overwhelmed and it could get much worse.

Under the proposed Easter lockdown, all shops and business throughout Germany would have been told to remain shut for five days in a row, while supermarkets were to reopen only on Easter Saturday. Almost typically, Merkel decided at the last minute that the lockdown should not go ahead.

“It was a mistake,” she said. “And mistakes should be called out.”

It is refreshing to see a politician admit error. It’s almost unheard of here. I can’t remember the last time it happened.

Angela Merkel bears the description of the most powerful woman in the world and sometimes even more lavishly, the leader of the free world, a title which speaks more of the diminution of American diplomatic power not just during Trump’s presidency but in Obama’s as well.

She resigned as leader of the Christian Democratic Union yesterday, the centre right party she has led since 2002 before becoming Chancellor in 2005.

She has been at the helm of the world’s fourth largest economy and political leader to the country’s 84 million people for the best part of two decades. At the CDU convention yesterday, she spoke apologetically of what she described as an “infuriating” capacity for making decisions at the last moment and this was one of them.

The applause, rapturous and mostly sincere, lasted for six minutes and was joined by thousands of Germans who took to their front porches and balconies to do the same. Within the CDU there was a sense of relief that the party could move on, attempt to renew and refresh.

But that’s politics. As Paul Keating said, “Everyone goes out feet first. The only difference is whether the pall bearers are crying or not.”

It might be a little early to break out the hankies and write her political epitaph.

Merkel wants to remain as Chancellor until her term expires in three years. The party she led may be on the nose, suffering two significant defeats in provincial elections just two weeks ago, but in a recent poll 56 per cent of the population want Merkle to remain as Chancellor.

She’s seen them all come and go. George W. Bush, Obama, Trump. She’s witnessed the French party system collapse and rebuild around a maverick President. She stood by as the UK voted to leave the European Union, bringing the biggest crisis to the single market edifice of the European Union. Through it all she remained an unapologetic conservative – a German, European and globalist.

In 2015, Merkel commenced a refugee policy sometimes incorrectly called open border which saw 1.4 million refugees arrive in the country, many from war torn Syria.

It wasn’t so much an open border policy as a reinstatement of EU law enshrining freedom of movement within Europe. While other countries closed their borders, Germany’s remained open.

On August 25, 2015, Merkel allowed Syrian refugees who had already registered elsewhere in the European Union to enter Germany and register there. A week later, Merkel relaxed controls on the border with Austria, allowing tens of thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary to enter Germany.

There was apocalyptic talk at the time that it would be the end of German society. There was disquiet among Germans with strong humanitarian beliefs that it was a case of too much, too quickly. While public opinion remains mixed today, no great harm has been done.

There have been problems, not least of all the extreme right nationalist groups emerging in greater numbers. But the standard economic markers remain generally positive. Unemployment declined between 2015 and 2019 and rose slightly from 5.1 to 5.9 per cent during the last quarter of 2020. Economic growth has been modest since 2015 with unsurprising wild fluctuations since the pandemic.

At the time Merkel said, “Germany is a strong country. We can do this.”

Facing criticism of a potential shift in the spiritual character of the country, Merkel said the problem was not one of there being “too much Islam in Germany but not enough Christianity.”

In her life before politics, Merkel was a scientist. She holds a doctorate in quantum chemistry. She prefers evidence and science to partisan politics. She unashamedly promotes the interests of the German population yet still has the intellect to appreciate the economic benefits of globalism. She is a Christian, a Lutheran evangelist to be precise.

She should be a conservative icon but is mostly held in contempt by people who self-identify as conservative but have scrambled further and further to the right without pause for reflection.

After all, it was the conservative right in the US that sleepwalked to the precipice of fascism, all the way to January 6 where thuggish supporters of a populist leader who turned out to be not very popular, at least not enough to secure a second term, attempted a violent insurrection.

The nature of conservatism that led to the reconstruction of Europe post-war, largely driven by conservatives such as Truman and Eisenhower, has not changed. It is conservatives or many of them who have moved on.

While others have goose stepped off into the shadows of ultranationalism, Merkel hasn’t budged from her ideological position.

Merkel is not finished yet but the sunset on her extraordinary political career is coming into view. Her longevity in politics, in a disparate political environment where power comes from coalitions of political convenience, is remarkable almost unique. She has been the smartest person in a lot of rooms filled with many important people for a very long time.

The big question for Germany for Europe and the world is what will happen when she goes out feet first?