September 18, 2021 9:58 am
Like a rock star, Angela Merkel is on her own round of greetings. The Chancellor recently visited Moscow and Kiev, and on September 16, just ten days before the German legislative elections that will mark her departure, she went to Paris. In sixteen years at the helm of Germany, Merkel has collaborated with four French presidents, with whom she has built a difficult but indispensable relationship for the functioning of the European Union.
She received the kiss of the hand from Jaques Chirac, she dealt with the unpredictable personality of Nicolas Sarkozy, she was disappointed by François Hollande, up to Emmanuel Macron, whose pro-European lyricism is completely foreign to his legendary pragmatism, but with which he built a part of their inheritance.
In an interview included in the book It was Merkel, written by the French journalist Marion Van Renterghem, Macron declared that Merkel’s legacy “will be that of having fully included Germany in the European project”.
The 750 billion euro post-pandemic European recovery plan, adopted in 2020, bears the mark. The idea of this gigantic package, partly comprised of an unprecedented joint loan for the 27, was put forward by France and other countries, without Germany. But only when the chancellor aligned did the project materialize.
Merkel would be the preferred candidate of Europeans for the presidency of the Union
After sixteen years in power, Angela Merkel has an indestructible image, even if she has been harshly criticized for having maintained a managerial rather than visionary attitude. Indeed, “Merkelism” has often rhymed with conservatism. During the Greek debt crisis, the chancellor left the field open to her finance minister to carry out her nefarious punitive policy, a stain on her four terms. Instead the opening on the occasion of the migration wave of 2015 will be remembered as the most daring political gesture, even if it paid for it with a rise of the far right.
The European “anchor” operated in her last term guaranteed the German Chancellor record popularity at the moment of saying goodbye. A study by the European think-tank European council on foreign relations (ECFR) conducted on twelve member countries indicates that Merkel would be the preferred candidate of Europeans for the presidency of the Union, with a plebiscite 41 percent against 14 percent for Macron .
What will become of relations between France and Germany after Merkel leaves the scene? The history following the reconciliation desired by General Charles De Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, more than sixty years ago, demonstrates that the weight of personal alchemy should not be underestimated, starting with the couples François Mitterrand-Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac-Gerhard Schröder . But there is also the weight of interests, history and geography that have gradually brought France and Germany closer together over the last sixty years.
Regardless of who wins the German legislative elections on September 26, there will be a strong element of continuity but also a necessary apprenticeship phase. Angela Merkel lived this moment four times with the different French presidents. Now it will be up to France to learn to live after Merkel.
(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)
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