Merkel won’t seek 5th term as German leader
BERLIN—Angela Merkel set off Monday on what could be a threeyear countdown to the end of her leadership of Germany, a stint that has made her the European Union’s longest-serving leader and a key figure in facing the continent’s many crises.
Merkel announced that she will give up the leadership of her conservative Christian Democratic Union in December and won’t stand for a fifth term as chancellor—signaling the beginning of the end at the helm for the woman many had labeled the “leader of the free world.”
That’s a title she herself objected to, saying leadership is never up to one person or country. But she has been a stalwart face of Western democracy through turbulent times, including the European debt crisis, the migrant influx of 2015, Britain’s decision to leave the EU and escalating trade tensions with the United States.
With her announcement, she indicated she has no intention of shirking from the “major foreign policy challenges” ahead, suggesting by taking the question of her future out of the picture her often rancorous coalition might govern better.
“With this decision, I am trying to contribute to allowing the government to concentrate its strength, finally, on governing well—and people rightly demand that,” Merkel said.
Merkel, 64, has led the CDU since 2000 and Germany since 2005. She governs Germany in a “grand coalition” of what traditionally has been the country’s biggest parties— the CDU, Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union and the center-left Social Democrats.
She announced her decision the day after voters punished both her CDU and the Social Democrats in an election in the central state of Hesse. It came two weeks after a similar debacle for the CSU and Social Democrats in neighboring Bavaria.
Her announcement comes amid growing concerns about far-right nationalist parties making inroads in Europe, including Germany. Sunday’s result in Hesse means that the Alternative for Germany party now holds seats in every state legislature and federal parliament.
Many in Europe also have looked to Merkel as U.S. President Donald Trump has increasingly called into question traditional trans-Atlantic ties with his announcements of trade tariffs, repeated criticism of European contributions to NATO, and other issues. Merkel has walked a fine line, criticizing some of Trump’s decisions while emphasizing that a good relationship with Washington is “central” to her government.
At the moment, it is still too early to tell whether she will be able to govern effectively as a lame-duck chancellor, or if it will strengthen her coalition, said Thorsten Faas, political science professor at Berlin’s Free University.
“The pressure obviously was so great that there was no other solution left,” he said. “It will be interesting to see what happens now, because this is initiating a dynamic, the outcome of which is unforeseeable today.”
For her part, Merkel said she sees “many more opportunities than risks for our country, the German government and also my party” in setting a transition of power in motion.
She said she hopes to open the way for “new success for the CDU” by letting it prepare for her departure as chancellor, and she won’t interfere with the choice of a successor.
Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING-DiBa in Frankfurt, said Merkel’s move “holds the potential for positive developments.”
“Not so much because new is always better but rather because it could give Merkel the freedom and the tail wind—freed from party ties—to put a final stamp on her legacy, possibly with bolder steps to reform the German economy and the monetary union,” he said.