Angela Merkel is a former chancellor of Germany and leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). In 2002, as CDU leader, she ejected Friedrich Merz from the party's top ranks, a move that sent him into the political wilderness for over a decade. Merz still struggles to utter her name in public. Merkel has described him as possessing an "unconditional will to power."
In 2011, as chancellor, she suspended conscription in Germany.
On August 31st 2015, as a tide of Syrians, Afghans and others marched towards Europe, Merkel declared Wir schaffen das ("We can handle this")—the phrase that came to define her 16 years as chancellor. Over 1m migrants soon made Germany their home. A decade on, around two-thirds of the intake work, not far from native-born employment rates, though migrant women have fared less well. The decision prompted Germany to partly reinstate the border controls that Schengen had abolished, and the EU in effect bribed neighbours—notably Turkey—to keep asylum-seekers on their territory. Merkel has admitted that her "polarising" stand helped the rise of the Alternative for Germany; her own party has since disowned her approach. Critics also note that her policies left the German economy dependent on gas from Russia and exports to China, and that she shut down Germany's nuclear power plants.
She resigned the CDU leadership in 2018, triggering the succession contests that Merz twice lost before finally winning in 2022.
If you laid all of our laws end to end, there would be no end.