( ; née
Kasner, born 17 July 1954) is the current
Chancellor of
Germany.
Merkel, elected to the German Parliament
from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) since 10 April 2000, and Chairwoman of the CDU-CSU
parliamentary party group from 2002 to 2005.
From 2005 to 2009 she led a
Grand
coalition with the
Christian Social Union
(CSU), its Bavarian
sister party,
and the
Social
Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), formed after the
2005 federal election on 22
November 2005. In the elections of 27 September 2009, her party,
the CDU, obtained the largest share of the votes, and she formed a
coalition government with the CSU and the
Free Democratic Party (FDP). Her
government was sworn in on 28 October 2009.
In 2007, Merkel was also
President of the European
Council and chaired the
G8. She played a
central role in the negotiation of the
Treaty of Lisbon and the
Berlin Declaration. In domestic
policy,
health care reform and
problems concerning future
energy
development have thus far been major issues of her
tenure.
Merkel is the first female
Chancellor of Germany. From 2006 to
2009,
Forbes Magazine has
named her the most powerful woman in the world.
In 2007 she became the second woman to chair the
G8, after
Margaret
Thatcher.
Chancellor Merkel is a member of the
Council of Women World
Leaders, an International network of current and former women
presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the
highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on
issues of critical importance to women and equitable
development.
In 2008 Merkel received the
Charlemagne Prize "for her work to reform
the
European Union". The prize was
presented by
Nicolas Sarkozy.
Early life
Angela
Merkel was born as Angela Dorothea Kasner in Hamburg
on 17 July
1954, as the daughter of Horst Kasner (b. 6 August 1926 in
Berlin
-Pankow
), a Lutheran pastor and his
wife, Herlind (b. 8 July 1928 in Danzig
, as Herlind
Jentzsch), a teacher of English and
Latin. Her mother is a member of the
Social Democratic
Party of Germany.
Her grandparents on her mother's side lived
in Elbing
in East Prussia; one of them being Masurian. She has a brother, Marcus (born 7
July 1957), and a sister, Irene (b. 19 August 1964).
Merkel's
father studied Theology in Heidelberg
(then West Germany
) and, afterwards, in Hamburg. In 1954 her father
received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow (near Perleberg
in Brandenburg
) which then was in the socialist German
Democratic Republic
(GDR), or Communist
East
Germany
, and the family moved to Templin
.
Thus
Merkel grew up in the countryside 80 km (50 miles) north
of Berlin.
Gerd Langguth, a former senior member
of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, states in his book that the
family's ability to travel freely from East to West Germany during
the following years, as well as their possession of two
automobiles, leads to the conclusion that Merkel's father had a
"sympathetic" relationship with the communist regime, since such
freedom and perquisites for a Christian pastor and his family would
have been otherwise impossible in East Germany.
Like most pupils, Merkel was a member of the official,
Socialist-led youth
movement
Free German Youth . Later
she became a member of the district board and secretary for
"
Agitprop" (Agitation and Propaganda) at
the Academy of Sciences in that organisation. However, she did not
take part in the
secular coming of age ceremony
Jugendweihe, which was common in East Germany,
and was
confirmed instead.
Merkel herself described her FDJ youth movement years as "cultural
work".
Merkel was
educated in Templin and at the University of Leipzig
, where she studied physics
from 1973 to 1978. While a student, she participated in the
reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritz Bastei, a project students
initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on
campus.
Such an initiative was unprecedented in the
GDR
of that period, and initially resisted by the
University
of Leipzig. However, with backing of the local
leadership of the
SED party, the project was
allowed to proceed.
Merkel worked and studied at the Central
Institute for Physical Chemistry
of the Academy of
Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof
from 1978 to 1990. She learned to speak
Russian fluently, and earned a
statewide prize for her proficiency. After being awarded a
doctorate (
Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis
on
quantum chemistry she worked as
a researcher.
In 1989, Merkel got involved in the growing
democracy movement after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, joining the
new party
Democratic
Awakening. Following the first (and only) democratic election
of the East German state, she became the deputy spokesperson of the
new pre-unification caretaker government under
Lothar de Maizière.
Member of Bundestag and cabinet minister
At the
first post-reunification
general election in December 1990, she was elected to the
Bundestag from a constituency which
includes the districts of Nordvorpommern
and Rügen
, as well as
the city of Stralsund
. This has remained her electoral district
until today. Her party merged with the west German CDU and she
became Minister for Women and Youth in
Helmut Kohl's 3rd cabinet. In 1994, she was made
Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her
greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her
political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest
cabinet minister, she was referred to by Kohl as "
das
Mädchen" ("the girl").
Leader of the Opposition
When the Kohl government was
defeated in the 1998 general
election, Merkel was named Secretary-General of the CDU.
In this
position, Merkel oversaw a string of Christian Democrat election
victories in six out of seven state elections in 1999 alone,
breaking the SPD-Green coalition's hold on the Bundesrat
, the legislative body representing the states. Following
a party financing scandal,
which compromised many leading figures of the CDU (most notably
Kohl himself, who refused to reveal the donor of DM 2,000,000
claiming he had given his word of honour and the then party
chairman
Wolfgang Schäuble,
Kohl's hand-picked successor, who wasn't cooperative either),
Merkel criticized her former mentor, Kohl, and advocated a fresh
start for the party without him. She was elected to replace
Schäuble, becoming the first female chair of her party, on 10 April
2000. Her election surprised many observers, as her personality
offered a contrast to the party she had been chosen to lead; Merkel
is a
Protestant, originating from
predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a
male-dominated,
socially
conservative party with strongholds in western and southern
Germany, and the Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep
Catholic roots.
Following Merkel's election as CDU leader, she enjoyed considerable
popularity among the German population and was favoured by many
Germans to become
Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder's challenger in the
2002 election.
However, she did not
receive enough support in her own party and particularly its sister
party (the Bavarian
Christian Social Union, or
CSU), and was subsequently out-manoeuvred politically by CSU leader
Edmund Stoiber, to whom she
eventually ceded the privilege of challenging Schröder; however, he
squandered a large lead in the opinion polls to lose the election
by a razor-thin margin. After Stoiber's defeat in 2002, in addition
to her role as CDU chairwoman, Merkel became leader of the
conservative opposition in the lower house of the German
parliament, the Bundestag. Her rival,
Friedrich Merz, who had held the post of
parliamentary leader prior to the 2002 election, was eased out to
make way for Merkel.
Merkel supported a substantial
reform agenda concerning Germany's economic
and social system and was considered to be more pro-
market than her own party (the CDU); she advocated
changes to German labour law, specifically removing barriers to
laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work
hours in a week, arguing that existing laws made the country less
competitive because companies cannot easily control labour costs at
times when business is slow.
Merkel argued for Germany's
nuclear
power to be phased out less quickly than the Schröder
administration had planned.
Merkel advocated a strong transatlantic partnership and
German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong
public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the
U.S. invasion of Iraq, describing it
as "unavoidable" and accusing Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder of
anti-Americanism. This led some critics to
characterize her as an American
lackey. She
criticised the government's support for the
accession of Turkey to
the European Union and favoured a "
privileged partnership" instead. In
doing so, she was seen as being in unison with many Germans in
rejecting Turkish membership of the European Union.
Comparisons
As a female politician from a
centre
right party, and a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many
in the
English language press to
former
British
Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher. Some have referred to her as "
Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau"
(all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady" --
Thatcher also has a science degree: an Oxford University degree in
chemistry). Political commentators have debated the precise extent
to which their agenda are similar.
In addition to being the first female German chancellor and the
youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is
also the first born after World War II, and the first with a
background in natural sciences. She studied physics; her
predecessors law, business, history or were military officers,
among others.
Merkel topped
Forbes magazine's list of
"
The World's 100
Most Powerful Women" in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.
On 30 May 2005, Merkel won the CDU/CSU nomination as challenger to
Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder of
the
SPD in the
2005 national
elections. Her party began the campaign with a 21% lead over
the
SPD in
national
opinion polls, although her
personal popularity lagged behind that of the
incumbent. However, the CDU/CSU campaign suffered
when Merkel, having made economic competence central to the CDU's
platform, confused
gross and
net income twice during a televised debate. She
regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint
Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the
German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as
Minister of Finance.
Merkel and the CDU lost ground after Kirchhof proposed the
introduction of a
flat tax in Germany,
again undermining the party's broad appeal on economic affairs and
convincing many voters that the CDU's platform of deregulation was
designed to benefit only the rich. This was compounded by Merkel
proposing to increase
VAT to reduce Germany's
deficit and fill the gap in revenue from a flat tax. The SPD were
able to increase their support simply by pledging not to introduce
flat taxes or increase VAT. Although Merkel's standing recovered
after she distanced herself from Kirchhof's proposals, she remained
considerably less popular than Schröder, and the CDU's lead was
down to 9% on the eve of the election.
On 18 September 2005, Merkel's CDU/CSU and Schröder's SPD went
head-to-head in the national elections, with the CDU/CSU winning
35.3% (CDU 27.8%/CSU 7.5%) of the second votes to the SPD's 34.2%.
Neither the SPD-Green coalition nor the CDU/CSU and its preferred
coalition partners, the
Free Democratic Party, held
enough seats to form a majority in the Bundestag, and both Schröder
and Merkel claimed victory. A
grand
coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD faced the challenge that
both parties demanded the chancellorship. However, after three
weeks of
negotiations, the two
parties reached a deal whereby Merkel would become Chancellor and
the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet. The coalition
deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14
November 2005. Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of
delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22
November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted
against her.
Merkel with United States President Barack Obama.
Reports had indicated that the grand coalition would pursue a mix
of policies, some of which differ from Merkel's political platform
as leader of the opposition and candidate for Chancellor. The
coalition's intent was to cut public spending whilst increasing
VAT (from 16 to 19%),
social insurance contributions and the top
rate of
income tax. Employment protection
will no longer cover employees during their first two years in a
job, pensions will be frozen and subsidies for first-time home
buyers will be scrapped.
Merkel had stated that the main aim of her government would be to
reduce unemployment, and that it is this issue on which her
government will be judged.
Chancellor of Germany
On 22 November 2005, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of
Germany.
Foreign policy
In her
first week in office, Merkel visited the French president Jacques Chirac, the EU leaders gathered in
Brussels
, the Secretary-General of NATO
, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, and received
President Pohamba of Namibia
.
On 25
September 2007, Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Dalai Lama for "private
and informal talks" in Berlin in the Chancellery
amid protest from China
.
China afterwards cancelled separate talks with German officials,
including talks with Justice Minister
Brigitte Zypries.
Policy on the Middle East and Iran
According
to Mail & Guardian Online and Deutsche Welle,
in August 2006, Merkel informed the German news agency Mehr that she had received a letter from the Iranian
president Ahmadinejad. She further told
Mehr, that to her opinion this letter contained "unacceptable"
criticism of Israel
and "put in
question" the Jewish state's right to exist, and that therefore she
would not formally respond to the letter.
On 16 March 2007, Merkel arrived in Israel to mark the 60th
anniversary of the Jewish state. She
was greeted at the airport by Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert, an honor guard and many of the
country's political and religious leaders, including most of the
Israeli Cabinet. Until then, US President
George W. Bush
had been the only world leader Olmert had bestowed with the honor
of greeting at the airport.
Merkel was granted special permission to
speak before Israel's
parliament
, which is normally done only by heads of
state. Merkel made her first visit to the
Middle East as
President-in-office of the
European Council in April 2007.
Economic and financial policy
In her first government address, on 30 November 2005, Merkel
announced her objective of improving the German economy and
reducing unemployment.
Liquidity crisis
Following
major falls in
worldwide stock markets in September 2008, the German
government stepped in to assist the mortgage company Hypo
Real Estate with a bailout which was agreed on October 6, with
German banks to contribute €30 billion and the Bundesbank
€20 billion to a credit line.
On 4 October 2008, a Saturday, following the
Irish Government's decision to
guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she
strongly criticized, Merkel said there were no plans for the German
Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that
the government would guarantee private savings account deposits,
after all. However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged
that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be
backed by legislation. This confusion led to major falls in
worldwide stock markets with the
FTSE 100
and
DAX stock exchanges falling 6% at one point.
Other European governments eventually either raised the limits or
promised to guarantee savings in full.
Cabinets
Merkel I
- See also Cabinet Merkel
I
The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00
CET, on 22 November 2005.
On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for
the position of Secretary General of the SPD,
Franz Müntefering indicated that he
would resign as Chairman of the party in November, which he did.
Ostensibly responding to this,
Edmund
Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated for the Economics
and Technology post, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005.
While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at
forming a viable coalition and cabinet, the manner in which Stoiber
withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his
position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU,
and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005.
Merkel II
- See also Cabinet Merkel
II
The second cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October
2009.
Personal life
In 1977, the former Angela Kasner married physics student Ulrich
Merkel. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Her second and
current husband is quantum chemist and professor
Joachim Sauer, who has largely remained out of
the media spotlight. She has no children, but Sauer has two adult
sons by a previous marriage.
Merkel is also prominent at the
German national football
team's matches, and is an honorary club member of
Energie Cottbus.
Honours
In 2006, Angela Merkel was awarded the
Vision for Europe Award for her
contribution toward greater European integration.
In 2007 Merkel was
awarded an honorary doctorate from
the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem
.She received the
Karlspreis (Charlemagne Prize) for 2008 for
distinguished services to European unity.
In January 2008, Merkel was awarded the
Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the
Federal Republic of Germany. She was also awarded the honorary
doctorate from Leipzig University in June 2008 and University of
Technology in Wrocław (Poland) in September 2008.
Selected published works
References
-
http://www.morgenpost.de/printarchiv/politik/article286737/Rechte_fuer_Minderheit_in_Polen_bleiben.html
- Allgäuer
Zeitung, 11 March 2009, Bitterböser Sarkasmus
- [1]
- cited in and listed in the Catalogue of the Deutsche
Nationalbibliothek under subject code 30 (Chemistry)
- About Germany: Angela Merkel (CDU) the chancellor of
Germany.
-
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,249207,00.html
-
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Merkel_Nuclear_phase_out_is_wrong_1006081.html
- http://www.slate.com/id/2122001/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4325600.stm
-
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/13/germany.government.ap/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4434812.stm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4458430.stm
- BBC NEWS | World | Europe | German coalition poised
for power
- BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Merkel defends German
reform plan
- Euronews.net, Merkel meets with the Dalai
Lama
- http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/16/news/mideast.php
- http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/16/mideast/merkel.php
-
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23391392-2703,00.html
-
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10881121
-
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-29889-3.html#backToArticle=541892
- Penfold, Chuck (2009-10-30). Merkel's new cabinet sworn in.
Deutsche Welle, 30 October 2009. Retrieved on 2009-11-01 from
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4836127,00.html.
- Biographie: Angela Merkel, geb. 1954
- Germany's First Fella, Angela Merkel Is Germany's
Chancellor; But Her Husband Stays Out Of The Spotlight - CBS
News
- American Friends of the Hebrew University
- Honorary Doctorates - The Hebrew University of
Jerusalem
- Charlemagne Prize 2008: Angela Merkel
- http://www.karlspreis.de/index.php?id=32&doc=68
(German)
- Bundesverdienstkreuz für Merkel | tagesschau.de
- Pressemitteilung 2008/106 der Universität
Leipzig
- Doktorat honoris causa dla
Merkel,Rzeczpospolita
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