Annalena Baerbock, the green girl studying as chancellor – Foreign

After Angela arrives Annalena? The Greens have chosen as a candidate for the succession of Mrs Merkel, who retires after 16 years, Annalena Baerbock, 40, and Germany may have one Green Chancellor, the first ecological head of government in Europe.

She is the youngest candidate ever chosen and the second woman in the history of the Federal Republic. For a long time the Grünens remained uncertain between Robert Habeck, 52, a philosophy graduate, novelist, pragmatic and thoughtful, and Annalena, outgoing and determined. A duel between friends played behind the scenes. The party’s policy is to prefer a woman if she is on a par with a man, “but that doesn’t apply to the Chancellery,” Habeck said at the outset. Then he pulled back: “Women take precedence“he said yesterday, and as a knight he added:” This is not the only advantage for Annalena, the best choice for Germany is a Chancellor. “

Mrs. Baerbock era almost a stranger when in 2018 she was elected to lead the party, a mixed couple, as is customary, alongside Habeck. “After that, his rise was lightning fast”, writes “Der Spiegel”. It has charisma, a appeal politico which makes her win challenges with political opponents without ever raising her voice. Lutheran, married to a manager, two daughters, was born in Hanover, in the north, her father is a mechanical engineer, her mother a teacher, but she is grown up on a farm, together with two sisters and two cousins. He studied abroad, in the United States, Florida, and Great Britain, and completed his studies with a master’s degree in international law. For three years he worked as a reporter, from 2000 to 2003, in a newspaper in Hanover.

IS an athlete, he won bronze three times at the national trampoline championships. But, like Habeck, No.has no government experience. He wants a common European refugee policy, and a more independent EU than the United States. The green party has always been divided in two, between pragmatists such as Joschka Fischer, vice-chancellor alongside Gerhard Schröder (from 1998 to 2005), or as Winfried Kretschmann, the first regional head of government in Baden-Würrtemberg, who has wisely in agreement with Daimler, the most important industry in his Land.

The Greens in government in Berlin, with Social Democrats and Linke, are instead fundamentalists and they want to turn the capital into one city ​​auto free, domain of cyclists and pedestrians. Annalena is a realist, “the challenge of our time is to save the environment”, but she is not an extremist. Jobs are important. Will he be able to make it next September 26th? Until Easter, the overtaking seemed almost complete: Frau Angela’s CduCsu had fallen to 26%, due to Covid and the scandals on the supply of masks. Today the gap has risen to ten points, 21 to 31, difficult to recover. But anything can still happen in five months. However, with the Social Democrats in crisis, they are at 14, the next government will be black and green, between CduCsu and Grünen. Annalena will therefore be vice-chancellor and foreign minister, the right place for her experience.