It was the old Angela Merkel: the woman who has dominated European politics for the better part of two decades handed her office to the next German chancellor, thanked her staff, then walked in the door and walked out – her the last one.
After 16 years as Germany’s leader and Europe’s unofficial leader, Merkel stepped down on Wednesday when she first took on President George W.
“Congratulations, dear chancellor, dear Olaf Scholz,” Merkel told her successor at a small gathering at the chancellery. “I know from experience that this is a momentous moment to be elected to this office.”
“It is an exciting, fulfilling duty, a challenging duty too,” Merkel said, “but if you accept it with pleasure it is probably one of the most beautiful duties this country has to be responsible for. Is.”
Long the world’s most powerful female leader, Merkel was a central political figure in Germany and Europe through four US presidents and five British and eight Italian prime ministers. Her continued growth in authority attracted fans and detractors alike, but she remained the continent’s only source of stability through repeated crises.
Criticized for failing to prepare a successor, Merkel, a Christian Democrat, may have done so in the end. Only – to the dismay of her own party – it was a member of her traditional opposition, Scholz, a Social Democrat and her last finance minister, who was sworn in on Wednesday after a campaign promising continuity.
Nevertheless, Merkel’s departure marks the end of an influential era of German politics which she herself called “eventful and often very challenging” – and the beginning of a new and uncertain chapter for Germany and Europe.
“It was a great period during which you were the chancellor of this country and you did great things,” Scholz said after formally handing him over to the chancellor and his staff. “There were some big crises we had to deal with, some of them we went through together.”
“It tied us together and not just these events,” Scholz said. “We’ve always had a very trusting cooperation. That’s good, I believe, because it shows that we are a strong, capable democracy with a lot of consensus between democracy, cooperation.
Many who worked closely with the late German chancellor point to his sense of dedication and willingness to compromise as the basis of his power.
“She was – and she is – someone who was always grooming, with a deep sense of responsibility, always looking for results,” said Dalia Greboschite, who first met Merkel in Brussels in 2005 and proceed to cooperate. During his own decade-long tenure as President of Lithuania. “And she was willing to make compromises to get that result.”
The full impression that Merkel made on her country and continent, the daughter of a former communist pastor, will only be revealed in the years to come. But for now the basis of his legacy is widely believed to be his decision to welcome more than 1 million asylum seekers to Germany in 2015 and 2016.
The decision sharply divided his country – particularly along the old East-West fault line – and fueled the rise of a far-right nationalist movement that grew stronger at any time since the Nazis.
But it also softened Germany’s image abroad and established its country as a liberal beacon as populism threatened the very foundations of the democratic system in the West.
“Angela Merkel changed Germany’s image in the world – in a way she saved Germany’s honour,” said Naika Fouten, an immigration expert and professor at Humboldt University in Berlin. “It went against all expectations that this obvious human gesture would come from Germany. That symbolic turning point, that Germany, the country with the ugly face, proved to be the rock and took people in, is associated with Angela Merkel.
The second period that defined his time in power was Europe’s debt crisis, and his tough prescriptions for long painful budget cuts as a way out of it – something Southern Europeans still called him for over a decade. Haven’t forgiven for a long time.
“In some parts of Europe Merkel is viewed much more negatively than in other parts of the world,” Fouton said.
The same is true in Germany: Wildly popular in the country’s far more populous West, Merkel is hated in the areas of the former Communist East where she grew up. The East has become the bastion of the Alternative for Germany, a party built on its watch and the first far-right party to make it to the German parliament since World War II.
“I know my face is polarizing,” Merkel admitted two years ago in the eastern city of Chemnitz when it became the scene of violent far-right riots. At the end of their time in office, protesters would hold weekly vigils outside the chancellor and participate in public events, in which they chanted “Merkel must go!”
At the time, her approval ratings were falling rapidly and it looked like she would not be able to make it politically during her fourth term. It was the pandemic that gave Merkel, a trained scientist of famous calm disposition, another honeymoon in opinion polls.
Scholz, who was his finance minister for the last four years, has a very similar temperament and similarities. “Not that much will change,” he told staff at the chancellor on Wednesday.
“The transition from Merkel to Scholz is so cohesive that you have to ask: What’s between them?” The newspaper Sudeutsche Zeitung said in a recent article. “Merkel was often accused of failing to produce a successor. But maybe that’s not true.”
To the annoyance of her own party, Merkel said she would “sleep tight at night” knowing that Scholz was running the country. She invited Scholz to accompany her to a meeting of the Group of 20 in Rome in October to introduce her to leaders such as President Joe Biden. He has included her in every major decision since the elections held two months ago. The last two jointly chaired a COVID emergency meeting with the governors of Germany’s 16 states.
During a military farewell ceremony for Merkel last week, she wished Scholz – whom she called “Dear Olaf” – “all the best and lucky hands and much success.” He immediately responded with a compliment of his own. “Angela Merkel was a successful chancellor,” she said on Twitter the same night. “She stood up for her country tirelessly and remained true to herself in the 16 years that changed a lot.”
Many Germans expressed pride in how smoothly Merkel handled the transition, drawing direct comparisons to former President Donald Trump and his supporters’ refusal to recognize Biden’s election.
“We are seeing a very good democratic transition, where there is a fundamental consensus,” said Christoph Heusgen, Merkel’s former chief foreign policy adviser, who took over the presidency of the Munich Security Conference this week. “I am a little proud of our democracy the way it has managed this transition without schadenfreude, without hatred, without malice.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Merkel watched from the visitors’ gallery in parliament – where her own family sat four times to watch her sworn in – as lawmakers voted for Scholz into office. She received a standing ovation from Chambers, before slipping quietly through the back door.
From the moment she took the oath of office in 2005, Merkel has embodied a string of firsts – the first chancellor born after World War II, the former First Lady, the First Lady. Now she has made history by becoming the first modern chancellor to step down from office, not by losing an election or parliamentary vote, but by deciding that she has served long enough.
One of those who most closely documented Merkel’s political career is Herlinde Koelbl, a photographer who began taking her portrait in 1991, just after taking office as Minister for Families and Children under Chancellor Helmut Koel. Was.
In an early interview she gave to Koelbl, the outgoing chancellor insisted that she wanted to “find the right time to leave politics.” At 67 years old, she is more than a decade younger than Biden and, after a self-imposed period of rest and reflection, has been able to reconcile ideals and ideas while in office, from global public health to development in Africa. One can expect to re-focus their energies on promotion. ,
But comparing Koelbl’s most recent photos to the younger Merkel, the 16-year toll on helping Europe’s biggest economy is visible. The open, curious gaze is replaced by a more distant, suspicious look.
“In the beginning, her eyes were very lively,” said Koelbl, “and now she looks at you, but the vibrancy is gone. The sparkle in her eyes has disappeared.”
On Wednesday, as she left the handover ceremony at the chancellor, Merkel appeared relaxed, even happy. Walking to the door, she turned to Scholz.
“And now to work,” she said.
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