Merkel decides the time is right to step aside as her influence fades
Once the most powerful politician in Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted yesterday that she has become a lame duck, setting off a scramble to replace her and deepening the continent’s deficit of highoctane leaders.
A day after a stinging electoral defeat in regional elections, Merkel said she will step aside as chair of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at the party’s conference in December and will not run for re-election as Chancellor in 2021. With her coalition Government increasingly unpopular and unstable, the end of her tenure could come far sooner.
The surprise decision reflected growing pressure on the longestserving head of state in the European Union after a year of setbacks.
The battle to succeed her is likely to become a referendum on her reign, with whoever emerges atop the CDU becoming the instant favourite to take over as Chancellor.
Merkel’s preferred heir, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, wants to continue in her tradition of moderation and big-tent centrism. But with Germany, and Europe, becoming ever more polarised, challengers are likely to push for the party to tack hard to the right.
Either way, Merkel stepping down will mark a major transition for a continent she has shaped for the past 13 years, through her handling of multiple debt crises, her decisions on nuclear energy and, most of all, her choice to allow more than one million asylum seekers to enter Germany.
A vigorous defender of the liberal international order, Merkel has been regarded as a counterweight to Trump-style nationalism.. But her slow-motion departure leaves a void.
Her would-be successors are barely known outside of Germany. Public support for French President Emmanuel Macron has cratered. Britain’s Theresa May is preoccupied with Brexit. Europe’s ascendant figures — including Italy’s Matteo Salvini and Hungary’s Viktor Orban — have more in common with US President Donald Trump than Merkel.
But by opting to step aside, Merkel may give herself the chance at a graceful exit, and her party a shot at
Yes, this is a bit of a risk. But having weighed things very, very carefully, it is a risk I want to take. Angela Merkel
a managed transition to a fresh face.
“The time has come to open a new chapter,” Merkel, 64, said during a Berlin news conference that, as is typical of her, ran short on sentiment and long on matter-of-fact pronouncements.
Merkel, who said she will retire from politics after her run as Chancellor, has been CDU chairman since 2000. In the past, she has said that the Chancellor should also be the leader of the ruling party, and that it was dangerous to divide the roles.
But she said yesterday that she had changed her mind in recent months as it became clear that “we cannot continue with business as usual”. “Yes, this is a bit of a risk,” she said. “But having weighed things very, very carefully, it is a risk I want to take.”
Merkel, a scientistturned-politician who’s known for her sober-minded assessments, may have had little choice.
Until last year, Merkel was the unquestionably dominant figure in German politics, having won three straight elections and seemingly on cruise control in a fourth. But the vote last September delivered an unexpectedly poor finish for the CDU, and the Chancellor’s hold on power has never been the same.
Her Government — a socalled grand coalition
— has been an unhappy and dysfunctional constellation of rivals, with both the centre-left Social Democrats and the CDU’s Bavarian sisters threatening to bolt.
At the same time, discontent was rising within the ranks of the CDU, as the party bled support in regional votes and national polls to challengers on its right — the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — and its left, the Greens.
“The internal pressure was getting too strong,” said Jan Techau, director of the Europe Programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “There was an overwhelming sense in the party that some freshness was needed.”
Merkel’s announcement set off a flurry of speculation in the German media over who would follow her as Chancellor.
Merkel had long resisted grooming a successor, and she did not endorse a candidate yesterday.
But earlier this year, she appeared to have given her blessing to Kramp-Karrenbauer, 56, the one-time leader of the west German state of Saarland and now the CDU’s general secretary. Known as “mini Merkel”, Kramp-Karrenbauer would represent a vote for continuity in both policy and style.
But the conservative wing of the CDU is also expected to mount a challenge. Health Minister Jens Spahn, 38, and Friedrich Merz, 63, a former parliamentary leader of the CDU, were named yesterday in German news reports as candidates. Spahn, in particular, has been an outspoken critic of Merkel’s and has advocated that the party move further right on immigration to win back supporters who defected to the far-right AfD.