DEFINING MERKEL’S LEGACY
Crises have a knack for felling leaders – but not Angela Merkel. During 16 years in power, the veteran navigated Germany through the 2008 financial turmoil and ensuing eurozone debt crisis, the 2015 refugee influx and now the coronavirus pandemic. But while she is largely admired at home and abroad even in the final weeks of her reign, the legacy she leaves behind is marked both by light and shadows.
PARTY IN CRISIS
Merkel scraped to a narrow win in 2005 against then-incumbent chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democrats, putting her conservative CDU-CSU alliance on the path of power for over a decade. At the zenith of her popularity, Merkel led the conservatives to a thumping win with 41.5 percent of votes in 2013. But her exit from politics has been marred by a succession crisis in her party. Merkel’s initial choices to take over from her had to bury their ambitions over various missteps. Her party’s current chancellor candidate, Armin Laschet, is lagging behind his Social Democrat rival Olaf Scholz, with the conservative CDU-CSU on course to come in below its worstever score in Sunday’s election.
BUDGET DOGMA
Once dismissed as the sick man of Europe, Germany has cemented its reputation as the bloc’s economic engine on Merkel’s watch. Unemployment
is at record lows – 5.7 percent in July even as the economy rebounds from the impact of the pandemic. Budget surpluses chalked up from 2012 also allowed the ageing nation to pay down a huge debt mountain, giving it a buffer against the impact of the health emergency. But Germany’s fixation with balanced budgets has left a sour taste, particularly among southern Europeans battered by the financial and eurozone debt crises.
CLIMATE CHANCELLOR?
Merkel made the decision to shut Germany’s nuclear power plants in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, triggering the ‘Energiewende’ – the shift to sustainable energy. But the sudden policy shift forced greater reliance on coal energy in the transition period as the country battles to ramp up wind or biomass energy output. Merkel’s government has been accused of protecting Germany’s vital automobile industry by watering down emissions regulation reforms, and its refusal to advance a 2038 deadline to quit coal energy has also irked green activists. “When I look at the situation, no-one can say that we have done enough,” admitted Merkel in June.
BUSINESS AS USUAL?
She was lauded by human rights activists in 2015 for keeping Germany’s borders open to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in Syria and Iraq. But on China’s mass incarceration of Uyghurs in the far western province of Xinjiang, Merkel has been accused of lacking bite. Critics say she is hamstrung by huge economic interests in China.