The making of Angela Merkel, a German enigma.
~Continued,...
The defining moment of her eight years as leader so far came with the eurozone financial crisis. Greece revealed an enormous - and unmanageable - public debt. And it soon emerged that other countries were in similar dire straits. But as Europe waited to see if Germany would agree to bail out the struggling members of the eurozone or force them to sort out their own problems, Merkel was criticised for reacting too slowly.
Caution and consensus, however, have always been hallmarks of the Merkel machine. "You can only manage such a crisis if you take a lot of people along the way," says Ursula von der Leyen, who has worked in every one of Merkel's cabinets since 2005. "Angela Merkel always knew where she wanted to end up, but she took time to find a way which everybody could go along with."
I don't claim that I have "cracked" Merkel - she is an abnormally complex and multi-layered character, unlike anyone else I can think of in world politics.
Quite a lot about her story seems to echo Margaret Thatcher's. Merkel comes from the edges - East Germany, rather than Lincolnshire - and was brought up by an abnormally self-certain and pious father. Something of a loner, she became quite a serious scientist before choosing politics.
Inside her party, she was picked up as a useful female talent by a somewhat patronising mentor - Kohl, rather than Edward Heath - and surprised everybody by her ruthlessness in ousting him, and eventually taking power herself. Like Thatcher, Merkel is a ferociously hard worker, excellent on the detail and a wily political operator.
Yet the differences matter much more than the similarities. Coming from her East German background she believes in social solidarity and working with trade unions; in a coalition-based political system, she is a mistress of consensus and, when it suits her, delay.
Our ignorance of this, the most important female politician in the world, is little short of shocking. Angela Merkel has mattered much more to us and the full European story than perhaps we've realised.
Is she going to remain as crucial in the future? Probably. The results from the imminent German elections can't be guaranteed but if Merkel is successful, as many have predicted, she'll have another chance to secure her legacy.
The defining moment of her eight years as leader so far came with the eurozone financial crisis. Greece revealed an enormous - and unmanageable - public debt. And it soon emerged that other countries were in similar dire straits. But as Europe waited to see if Germany would agree to bail out the struggling members of the eurozone or force them to sort out their own problems, Merkel was criticised for reacting too slowly.
Caution and consensus, however, have always been hallmarks of the Merkel machine. "You can only manage such a crisis if you take a lot of people along the way," says Ursula von der Leyen, who has worked in every one of Merkel's cabinets since 2005. "Angela Merkel always knew where she wanted to end up, but she took time to find a way which everybody could go along with."
I don't claim that I have "cracked" Merkel - she is an abnormally complex and multi-layered character, unlike anyone else I can think of in world politics.
Quite a lot about her story seems to echo Margaret Thatcher's. Merkel comes from the edges - East Germany, rather than Lincolnshire - and was brought up by an abnormally self-certain and pious father. Something of a loner, she became quite a serious scientist before choosing politics.
Inside her party, she was picked up as a useful female talent by a somewhat patronising mentor - Kohl, rather than Edward Heath - and surprised everybody by her ruthlessness in ousting him, and eventually taking power herself. Like Thatcher, Merkel is a ferociously hard worker, excellent on the detail and a wily political operator.
Yet the differences matter much more than the similarities. Coming from her East German background she believes in social solidarity and working with trade unions; in a coalition-based political system, she is a mistress of consensus and, when it suits her, delay.
Our ignorance of this, the most important female politician in the world, is little short of shocking. Angela Merkel has mattered much more to us and the full European story than perhaps we've realised.
Is she going to remain as crucial in the future? Probably. The results from the imminent German elections can't be guaranteed but if Merkel is successful, as many have predicted, she'll have another chance to secure her legacy.
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