‘Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the General Election’
Behind Angela Merkel’s soft exterior lies a cold, calculating mind. No wonder colleagues call her ‘Merkelavelli’, says Matthew Qvortrup
‘Iam sure that we – daughters of vicars – can get along.” Angela Merkel was sweetness itself when she met Theresa May in July last year. The mood seemed positive. The Prime Minister even tried out a few German phrases she had learnt at grammar school. But there was something the media did not report. Almost as an afterthought, Merkel added that there could be no Rosinenpickerei (“cherry-picking”). Then, in non-threatening language, she set out her terms for Brexit. Nothing much has changed since then – apart from her tone.
Some, in this country, were surprised that the German Chancellor warned British negotiators to stop being “delusional” during a recent Bundestag debate. It was an incendiary jibe and came as Merkel again insisted that Britain’s Brexit divorce bill – which could reportedly reach £84 billion – was non-negotiable and must be settled before there is any discussion of future trade agreements.
But for those of us who have listened to her speeches in the German Parliament since the late Nineties, there is nothing new about such rhetoric. Though not a great orator, Mrs Merkel, 62, is known as a mistress of the put-down.
In 2003 – after she had become party leader but two years before being elected Germany’s first woman Chancellor – Merkel quoted the gospel when dismissing then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s economic policy: “His kingdom is not of this world.” That she now reportedly believes Mrs May to be “on another planet” follows the same pattern.
In many ways, Angela Dorothea Merkel (née Kasner) is the odd one out in world politics. She was born in Hamburg, west Germany, in 1954, the daughter of pastor Horst Kasner and his wife Herlind. While millions fled the Stalinist regime, the Kasners went the other way, travelling to east Germany. Horst was prepared to risk his safety and that of his family to preach the gospel to communists in the officially atheist state.
Living under a dictatorship and being spied on were formative experiences for the exceptionally bright Angela, the eldest of three. As a teenager, she topped the class in Russian – and even won the 1970 language Olympiad for the ability to speak Lenin’s mother tongue.
She had wanted to study medicine, but was allocated a place in the physics department of Karl Marx University in Leipzig. She excelled – but tellingly failed her compulsory course in Marxist-Leninism. The young graduate married fellow physicist Ulrich Merkel at just 23 but they divorced a couple of years later, having “drifted apart”.
Her former husband has remembered the break-up as business-like and brusque, giving an early glimpse of Merkel’s flint-like edge. “Suddenly one day she packed her bags and left the apartment we shared. She had weighed up the consequences and analysed the pros and cons… She took the washing machine and I kept the furniture.”
There are indications that the Brexit divorce will follow a similar pattern. Like Theresa May, Angela Merkel is known to carefully deliberate and weigh up the facts before she pounces. That is how she dealt with the financial crisis in 2008, with Greek debts in 2011 and 2015, and with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine in 2014. It is no coincidence that, in 2015, the new German word of the year was merkeln – “to Merkel”– meaning to analyse all the evidence before making a decision.
Many such deliberations take place in Merkel’s tight inner circle of female advisers, a group often known as “the girl camp”.
In public Merkel, who like May has no children of her own, likes to cultivate the image of Mutti – the all-seeing, all-caring matriarch of her nation. But it would be a mistake to write her off as a kindly mother figure. She is a formidable operator – someone who doesn’t do anything without analysis of precisely how it will affect her vision for her nation, as noted by the journalist Robin Alexander in his recent book The Driven Ones. This pragmatism holds the key to understanding her policies towards the European Union.
It is a widely held misconception that Merkel is a passionate Europhile, who harbours ideas about a United States of Europe. Indeed, that is what her mentor, the former chancellor Helmut Kohl, believed. But, unlike Kohl, Merkel sees the EU as a vehicle for promoting and strengthening the German economy, and it is through this lens that she makes calculations.
“You are destroying the Europe we built”, Kohl told her after Merkel insisted that the financial crisis be solved in collaboration with the Americans. She reportedly responded, “That Europe, dear Helmut, no longer exists.”
In private, Merkel likes to tell jokes. In this way, she makes her colleagues feel at ease. But many a politician has learnt the hard way that her syrupy words mean little at the negotiating table.
“And she was supposed to be my friend”, Tony Blair is said to have sighed after the EU budget negotiations in 2006. He felt there was a good rapport between the two. But behind the scenes Merkel had cajoled him into giving up much of the rebate Margaret Thatcher secured for Britain in the Eighties.
In 1999, reports surfaced that Kohl had received illegal party funds and that his successor Wolfgang Schäuble had known about it. Again, Merkel was unromantic. After a carefully choreographed campaign she denounced both men and took over the leadership of the party. No wonder Schäuble described her as “Merkelavelli”.
The temptation is to compare Angela Merkel with Margaret Thatcher. Both ascended the greasy pole in male-dominated environments and both were trained as scientists. It is also tempting to speculate that Merkel is becoming too confident and that this could spell the end of her career – just as it did for the Iron Lady.
Such talk is premature. The end of Merkel has been predicted dicted on many occasions; with the collapse ollapse of the Eurozone, her dealingsgs with Putin and in the wake of herr “open-door” refugee policy. But not even this can seemingly topple Mutti. tti.
Any speculation that at she could lose September’s r’s election to the Social Democrat Martin Schulz ulz has been all but quashed. Merkel is now on course to win, with the latest poll giving her Christian Democrats 34 per cent nt of the vote, to the SPD’sD’s 28.
Being tough on the British is – in a sense – part of her election campaign. She is sendingding out a signal that Brexit will be bad for Britain – a painful split that will hurt us more than it will Germany. It is a warning shot across the EU, in case any other country should be considering leaving. It is, of course, possible that Mrs Merkel is delusional. That she hasn’t reckoned with taking on the British “bulldog spirit” and an equally pragmatic opponent in Mrs May. But what is clear is that she is up for the fight. As a little girl, Angela Merkel would listen to her mother read to her from classic German literature. A favourite story was Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. The final words read: “She stood there, a victor in a good fight which all her life she had waged against the assaults of reason; humpbacked, quiveringquiveri with the strength of herh convictions, a little prophetess,proph admonishing and inspired”.inspire Few can doubt the strength of Mrs Merkel’s convictions.conviction But only time will tell if her aggression towards Britain will be a grave miscalculationm - and fail to deliver the victory for GermanyGe that she so despe desperately desires.
Angela Merkel : Europe’s Most Influential Leader by Matt Qvortrup is published by Duckworth (£25). To order for £20 with free p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books. telegraph.co.uk
‘Being tough on the British is – in a sense – part of her election campaign’