Merkel

Whilst countries like Poland and the Baltic States cautioned against getting too close to Moscow – and increased their own defence spending – Berlin under former Chancellor Angela Merkel believed in doing business.

Germany's last government collapsed late in 2024 because of disagreements over loosening debt restrictions brought in by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government during the financial crisis in 2009.

The assessment was commissioned by the office of Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor at the time, but was never publicly known of until now.

If we flash back to the bygone days of the late 2000s, Merz’s future looked to be in the past: He was Angela Merkel's defeated right-wing rival in the Christian Democratic Union, the mainstream conservative party that has dominated German electoral politics since the fall of the Nazi regime, first in the former West Germany and then, less convincingly, in post-1990 reunified Germany.

Even amid the continent-wide political chaos caused by the Syrian migrant crisis and the rise of fascist-flavored parties in one country after another, it still took three tries for Merz to get himself elected party leader after Merkel’s retirement.