Islamist terrorism biggest test for Germany, says Merkel

ISLAMIST TERRORISM is the biggest test facing Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday in a New Year’s address to the nation, and vowed to introduce laws that improve security after a deadly attack before Christmas in Berlin.

Merkel said in her annual televised address being broadcast Saturday that 2016 had been “a year of severe tests,” the toughest of them Islamic extremist terror. She added, however, that she is “confident for Germany”.

Merkel, seeking a fourth term as chancellor in 2017, described 2016 as a year that gave many the impression that the world had “turned upside down”. She urged Germans to shun populism and said Germany should take a leading role in addressing the many challenges facing the European Union.

“Manyattachto2016thefeeling that the world had turned upside down or that what for long had been held as an achievement is now being questioned. The European Union for example,” Merkel said. “Or equally parliamentary democracy, which allegedly is not caring for the interests of the citizens but is only serving the interests of a few. What a distortion,” she said in a veiled reference to claims by the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AFD) that is stealing votes from her conservatives.

Ahead of the 2017 election, polls put her conservative bloc wellaheadofrivalsbutafractured electoral landscape risks complicating the coalition arithmetic.

Bild wrote that for an increasing number of voters the chancellor, 62, no longer appeared unassailable. Liberals across the world have hailed Merkel as an ‘anchor of stability’ in a year that saw Donald Trump elected as the US president, Brexit and Usrussia relations deteriorate to Cold War levels. REUTERS

AP Angela Merkel.