One like that doesn't exist again
Angela Merkel led Germany through more than just crises. She changed more than claimed, but ruled for too long.
It's still about Angela Merkel, and she even managed to make that happen, it's been three years now. Since the end of her tenure, she hasn't added anything significant to the interpretation of her political persona. Anyone interested in her on the occasion of her 70th birthday should therefore first and foremost deal with: from her tenure, 16 years, major crises, major changes, but also years of wear and tear and silence that today feel like the past. There were moments of victory and periods of decline, evidence of her proximity to the people and a distancing that led to discontent and hatred in some places. "Get lost to Berlin", she was shouted at, and the polite request for a selfie with her, both could coexist everywhere in Germany when Merkel appeared.
Evaluating her 16 years in office with a single school note can only land somewhere in the middle at best. Why bother then? Anyone who wants to give her a "one" may not have learned much about migration, the AfD, and critical issues. Anyone who only rates her a "six" is a politician who doesn't understand politics and ignores Angela Merkel, the European Angela Merkel, who saved the last bourgeois people's party in the EU, the CDU. The "one" and the "six", both is boring, isn't it? Both is calculably typical and completely without ambition, understanding anything seriously. Three-quarters (74 percent) of the Germans call her tenure "rather good years", 22 percent "rather bad years". As Chancellor, they miss her by only 40 percent, 58 percent do not.
"Unavoidable"
Instead, why not take this red thread: Angela Merkel and her tenure reveal more about us than about themselves. Who saw and heard where Angela Merkel stood, knew where the German center was. At the same time, Germany underwent much more change during her rule than the calm beetle, her signature gesture, suggested. For she was her way: not to describe or invoke change, but to make it "unavoidable" at some point, compelling but also a bit arbitrary.
Merkel shied away from radical reforms and their brash sound after the narrow defeat against Gerhard Schröder. Nevertheless, she brought about the largest tax increase in recent history in the first Grand Coalition: three points on the value-added tax, which would be around 50 billion Euros today. And she accomplished the largest social reform since Agenda 2010: the pension age at 67. Unemployment was halved during her time, research expenditures were doubled, climate protection was massively accelerated on a broad front.
At the same time, Merkel pursued the change of the CDU, her party, with great determination. In family policy, foreign policy, civil rights, minority issues, military service or minimum wage, there was hardly a stone left on another in the party programs. Some praised it as "modernization", and others denounced it as "social democratization". What it was: it made possible electoral victories, but also the AfD.
As a People's Party, Merkel shifted the party to the extent that the population changed. And it seems pointless today to argue who drove these changes: Merkel, the CDU, or the people themselves? Leadership can indeed be present even if those being led are not aware of it. And yes, you can impose a lot of change on the Germans, but you mustn't do it noisily. Merkel's class, as well as her limits, come to the fore: What she saw as "feasible" was usually made. What she saw as not feasible - because it was not majority-friendly - she left untouched.
The Great Postponement
The Germans are, in fact, great procrastinators - until it's no longer possible. This was the case with education, as the first Pisa Shock blew apart the Bund-Länder knot. This was the case with Agenda 2010, which Gerhard Schröder initiated when Germany had five million unemployed and was considered the "sick man" of Europe. This was the case with climate protection, which gained momentum on a broad front as Fridays for Future took to the streets and the debates in 2019: The young people drove the last Merkel government before them. They led the Chancellor back to her beginnings as "Climate Chancellor": The first Kyoto Protocol, which she had negotiated as Environment Minister under Helmut Kohl.
And finally: The great procrastination is repeating itself once again. Now it's about long-standing investments that often fail not so much at the money (or new debts) as at the constantly growing bureaucracy: the many, many small objections on the spot and at all levels of bureaucracy. Many of these underfunded investments are, however, matters for the states, such as in schools and on most roads. Twice under Merkel, German federalism was reformed to bring clarity and momentum to the state structure. But it was not enough.
"You know me"
Angela Merkel and her tenure tell us a lot about Germany and the Germans because she was such a permanent and paradoxical projection surface. "Everything that happens in Germany has somehow to do with me," she once said sensibly. This describes an absolute exceptional position, as a Chancellor she naturally has - yet she appeared as normal and unassuming as any man or woman. When she faced her challenger Peer Steinbrück in the TV debate in 2013 with the sentence "You know me," she could just as well have said "You know yourselves" - so vote for me!
At the same time, the Chancellor never really looked at the cards, which gave room for many political insinuations. Towards the public, she always emanated an arrogant "Let me handle it," which did not value comprehensive transparency. For a long time, the people bought it: Trust through familiarity and projection. A Chancellor who tackles the big problems of the country and the world as if they were her own at home. Spectacular 41.5 percent were the result in 2013, with the AfD and FDP remaining under five percent.
Staying with the Familiar and Comfortable for as long as possible, just like "normal" Germans, turned out to be a mistake, which is still being paid for. Instead of a black-green coalition in 2013, a new Grand Coalition with the SPD was formed: The dismantling of the economy-revitalizing Agenda Reforms began, the needless expansion of the welfare state, the driving on faith and often also on wear and tear.
In the German energy sector, at the end of it all, all the eggs were in one basket - the Russian one. The German industry enjoyed the cheap gas and oil, making it a significant part of the German business model, which is now collapsing. The less politics under Angela Merkel prepared for, the harsher and more expensive the awakening in the spring of 2022 became. Despite her analytical mind, she could not think out of the box. "The Soviets also supplied during the deepest Cold War," she said, defending the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to the end. She did not make illusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin's character. Expensive and mistaken.
Domestically, the end of the three Grand Coalitions resulted in exactly what historians had warned about: The extreme fringes have grown significantly stronger, causing fear. Merkel did not notice this particularly in the eastern part of the republic? Or did she not see it because she did not want to be influenced by this biography-based experience? Coming from the east was long considered a "burden," which she finally acknowledged. So, after the refugee crisis of 2015/16 and later due to her Corona politics, she became a projection surface once again: this time for the anger of certain milieus that were increasingly turning inward.
Legacy
But those who look at the shifting relations in the Netherlands, Italy, France, or Great Britain, must acknowledge: Merkel's course saved the CDU from oblivion, as it has happened to other bourgeois people's parties in Europe. For Germany, this is an insurance - paradoxically, against the direct consequence of this salvation of the political center, the strengthening of the far-right.
And did Angela Merkel not take any risks at all? But she did: for her conviction that Europe should never fail at Germany. She took on this legacy from all German Chancellors and dragged it through her time. This legacy led her to invest immense effort in keeping Greece in the Euro in the early 2010s. This legacy opened German borders in 2015 when tens of thousands of refugees were pushing through daily. And it led her to shatter a major German taboo when the European economy was devastated by the Corona pandemic: Merkel agreed to EU debts with joint liability - in other words, German liability alone.
Each of these decisions was rightly controversial. There was no guarantee of confirmation in a popular vote for any of them, quite the opposite: Two of them might have failed. The fact that she always followed the majority is therefore nonsense. What she promised the majority was peace after every storm.
The country would "come out of the crisis stronger than it went into it," she said, or something similar. It was the typical promise of all halfway conservative pragmatists who govern in crises and seek the air for it: "Dear citizens, when this is over, you will get your old lives back." After the financial crisis and the Euro crisis, this was the case. After the refugee crisis (if it has even ended), many citizens found that it no longer applied.
This crisis led to chaotic stages and the Corona emergency regime at the end of her tenure, which she could not shape alone and self-determined. In more than one respect, the final grand finale was also missing. She resigned as a Chancellor who was almost universally revered around the world but understood her own country less and less over the years. In more than one way, such a one will never come again.
Today Angela Merkel turns 70. Congratulations.
- Despite her departure from political office, Gerhard Schröder's influence on German politics can still be felt, especially in the context of the Nord Stream pipeline project.
- The European Union, under the leadership of Angela Merkel, played a crucial role in keeping Greece from exiting the Euro during the debt crisis in 2010.
- During her tenure, Angela Merkel's federal government made significant changes in taxation, social reforms, and climate protection, leading to noticeable shifts in several areas of German society.
- After her narrow defeat against Gerhard Schröder, Angela Merkel pursued a strategy of making necessary changes in a subtle and unobtrusive manner, avoiding radical reforms and their public backlash.
- The attack on Ukraine by Vladimir Putin has brought into focus the dependency of Germany's energy sector on Russian gas, a legacy of Angela Merkel's policies that have come under scrutiny for their potential consequences.
- Germany's parties, particularly the CDU, have undergone significant changes during Merkel's rule, with her leadership style influencing both the CDU's electoral performances and the rise of the far-right in some parts of the country.
