Angela Merkel’s decision to relinquish her post as party leader of the CDU in November, while staying on as Chancellor until the next election, is truly an act of responsibility.
She has taken upon herself the responsibility of her and her party’s policy decisions of the past years, especially the issue of immigration, and has removed herself following recent regional election losses.
She has opened the doors for a soul searching within Germany’s and Europe’s leading political movement. The party will now have ample time to look for and elect the new party leader.
The calmness with which this selection will take place indicates the maturity of German democracy.
The person taking over after her must have a new vision for Germany and Europe for the next 20 to 30 years. My favourite for this post is Friedrich Merz for two reasons.
The first is that he had been thrown out of politics 20 years ago by Merkel. He was too much of a threat and a challenger to her authority then. He was so because he is a very good politician with very strong Christian Democratic values. He remains a good and strong politician even because of that.
The second reason for my choice is that he has had 15 years of experience within industry since he last left politics. Being an excellent person and having real world experience at the very top of German and global industry is an excellent pedigree for the job.
He will have strong contenders in Jens Spahn and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and that is good. The debate and the visions for the future of our continent that they will discuss are important and we should all follow the debate to try to glean the sense of direction.
We, Europeans, whether we may have met Angela Merkel personally or not, have a lot to be grateful for
The new leader’s main task will be to give hope to the upcoming generation for a stable and sustainable future.
The growth of the green party with 20 per cent of the electorate in Hesse and Bavaria bodes also very well for the future.
The Grand Coalition did its job during the economic and immigration crises. It has, however, also produced the rise of the ultra-right AFD which has eaten away 10 per cent of the bases of both the CDU and the Socialist parties.
Merz’s task, if he is elected party leader and potential next Chancellor, will be to win back voters to mainstream politics, to solve the immigration issue through the integration and absorption of the million immigrants of the past years by launching the Marshall Plan for Africa, to set out the grand lines, with the Greens, for a sustainable way of life without fossil fuel, brown coal, plastics and diesel cars, and to show the way for responsible globalisation by fair distribution of the gains made from it, through taxation of multinationals and fighting social and other economic dumping from the US, China, Asia and India.
I think that whoever is elected on such a programme will be a good thing for Germany, for Europe, for Malta.
Angela Merkel has been, is and will remain the politician of the century, who has shown all of us what stuff politicians should be made of. Solid, calm, Christian or, at least, socially conscious, but determined in her European and world values. She tolerated no nonsense from the likes of Trump and did not give in to any threats from the UK on the Brexit negotiations. She stands firm as a rock.
That she stays on to mentor the incoming leader, to take the shocks and buffets of the remaining local regional and EU elections on her shoulders and then to gracefully retire into either a European job like President of the Commission or Council (but I doubt that she is interested) or to retire to her beloved northern German Baltic coast, is her choice.
We, Europeans, whether we may have met her personally or not, have a lot to be grateful for.
Thank you, Frau Doktor Merkel.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece