BERLIN – Angela Merkel, the soft-spoken however forceful chancellor who dominated German and European politics for 16 years, says there’s “truly nothing” she misses about public life.
“I’m grateful that I had such an extended and thrilling time. But I don’t want it anymore,” Merkel, who retired in early 2021, advised Der Spiegel in a uncommon interview earlier than a crowd at Berlin’s Admiralpalast theatre on Wednesday night.
The former chancellor, who led Germany for 16 pivotal years, had surprisingly heat phrases for present Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The two Christian Democrats had been long-time rivals, and Merkel’s dominance of the social gathering as soon as drove Merz out of politics for a number of years.
“As a citizen, I feel what Friedrich Merz has finished is nice,” Merkel mentioned. “To be trustworthy, it’s a aid that Germany is as soon as once more presenting itself with attraction and a powerful voice in Europe and the world.”
Russia legacy
Few of Merkel’s positions as chancellor have drawn as a lot criticism as her method to Russia. Under her management, Germany maintained shut commerce ties and deepened reliance on Russian power whilst President Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia in 2008 and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
Merkel has persistently defended her legacy on Russia and sought to justify her choices as rational on the time in her prolonged memoirs printed final autumn. On Wednesday, she recommended that she considered Putin as a possible adversary from their very first assembly.
She recounted how Putin referred to as the collapse of the Soviet Union “the best disaster of the twentieth century.” Merkel, who spent her first 36 years in communist East Germany, mentioned she replied: “What you now name the best disaster was the happiness of my life.”
That trade, she mentioned, made clear that “we’re on two completely different sides”.
Migration and the far proper
Merkel additionally reiterated her opposition to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and any cooperation between it and her outdated centre-right CDU. Earlier this 12 months, she publicly rebuked Merz throughout the election marketing campaign for counting on AfD help to push an anti-immigration decision in parliament.
She defended her dealing with of the 2015 refugee disaster, when a whole bunch of 1000’s arrived in Germany. Her welcoming stance – epitomised by her famed comment, “wir schaffen das” (“we will do it”) – gained international admiration on the time however was later rejected by many conservatives and vilified by the far proper.
“We have finished loads, however in fact not all the things,” Merkel mentioned on Wednesday, echoing that well-known phrase.
But whereas she acknowledged shortcomings on migration, she as soon as once more argued {that a} harsh border crackdown – with police wielding water canons to show asylum-seeking migrants away – would have been “unworthy of us as a rustic”.
(de, aw)
