Ara in English - Merkel

Nostalgia for Merkel is fading in a Germany at a low ebb.

Beatriz Juez — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 15:25:02 +0000

One in four Germans feels nostalgic for former Chancellor Angela Merkel, even though many of her compatriots question her legacy, even within her own party. Four years after he left office, 25% of Germans long for the old days when the Christian Democrat was Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Friedrich Merz, from Merkel's eternal rival to Germany's new chancellor

Beatriz Juez — Wed, 07 May 2025 05:00:27 +0000

Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz – Friedrich Merz’s full name – has gone from being Angela Merkel’s political rival within the conservative party to becoming Germany’s new chancellor. Merz, 69, will govern Europe’s largest economy for the next four years in coalition with the Social Democrats, after his party won the federal elections last FebruaryAnd after he has gained enough support in the Bundestag to be elected head of government, despite the scare of the first vote, in which he did not obtain enough votes: a warning that he probably will not have a peaceful term in office.

20/4: A sum

Vicenç Villatoro Lamolla — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 20:03:52 +0000

I read in the press: "According to the polls, Ayuso and Vox will obtain an absolute majority in Madrid". And I try to reread this headline with Angela Merkel's eyes. I imagine her surprise, shock and indignation. In the 2018 elections in Bavaria, the CSU - the Bavarian version of Merkel's party - won 85 seats out of 205 in parliament. Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the far-right party equivalent of Vox, won 22. So the two parties together arithmetically had an absolute majority. But it did not occur to anyone either in the polls or when the results were made public to write a headline saying that the CSU and AfD had an absolute majority. Simply because this arithmetically possible majority was politically impossible. Worse, disgusting. A few Bavarian MPs dared to hint at the possibility, not many, and were quashed by Merkel. And the CSU sought alliances with other parties. Merkel would be scandalised by the naturalness with which Madrid takes for granted an alliance that in Bavaria would be aberrant. Vox is like AfD, but Madrid is not Bavaria, nor is the PP the equivalent, when it comes to forming coalitions, of the German Christian Democrats. Nor is Ayuso Merkel. Even if they share a group in Europe.