BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday suffered another episode of uncontrolled trembling, a week after a similar incident that sparked questions about her health.
The latest lapse came hours before Merkel was due to board a plane for the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
The German leader began to tremble as she stood next to President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was giving a speech at a ceremony to formally appoint a new justice minister.
The shaking went on for two minutes, according to a DPA photographer who was present at the event.
Merkel folded her arms visibly in a bid to stop the trembling.
She only finally brought it under control once she was able to take a few steps.
She was offered a glass of water but turned it down.
Her previous bout of shaking last Tuesday had been blamed on dehydration on a hot summer’s day.
Despite the latest incident, a German government spokesman said Merkel would not be canceling any appointments on Thursday and Friday.
“The chancellor is well,” he said, adding that she will be flying as planned to Osaka for the G20 summit.
Merkel, frequently called the European Union’s most influential leader and the most powerful woman in the world, turns 65 next month.
She has said she will leave politics at the end of her term, in 2021.
There were brief concerns about her health in 2014 when she was taken ill during a television interview. The broadcast was briefly interrupted when she experienced a drop in blood pressure.
Her spokesman Steffen Seibert explained at the time the leader did not feel well for a moment, then ate and drank something and continued the interview.
Merkel suffers new trembling spell on eve of G20
Merkel suffers new trembling spell on eve of G20
- The shaking went on for two minutes, according to a DPA photographer who was present at the event
- Her previous bout of shaking last Tuesday had been blamed on dehydration on a hot summer’s day
Danish PM backs NATO ‘permanent presence’ around Greenland
- “We have asked NATO to be more present in the Arctic region,” Frederiksen said
- She said discussions about Denmark’s sovereignty were off the table
BRUSSELS: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Thursday that NATO states backed having a “permanent presence” in the Arctic, including around Greenland, after US President Donald Trump claimed a framework deal was struck to satisfy his demands.
“We have asked NATO to be more present in the Arctic region,” Frederiksen said at the start of a European Union summit in Brussels.
“Everybody in NATO agrees about that, the Arctic states, but also other member states, that we need a permanent presence from NATO in the Arctic region, including around Greenland.”
Trump on Wednesday backed down from the threat of using force or tariffs to try to take over Greenland, after saying an agreement was reached in talks with NATO chief Mark Rutte.
Details remained scant of the accord — but Trump did not make any progress toward his goal of trying to gain control over the autonomous Arctic territory of fellow NATO member Denmark.
Frederiksen said discussions about Denmark’s sovereignty were off the table. “It cannot be changed,” she said.
NATO said following the talks that the alliance would ramp up security in the Arctic, after Trump used the perceived threat from Russia and China to justify his desire for Greenland.
A source familiar with the discussions said Denmark and the United States would also look to renegotiate a 1951 defense pact on Greenland that governs American troop deployments on the island.
“We said to the Americans a year ago that we can discuss our agreement on defense, but it has to be in the framework of us as a sovereign state,” Frederiksen said.
The Danish leader insisted the two sides “have to work together respectfully, without threatening each other.”
“I, of course, hope to find a political solution within the framework of democracy and how we cooperate as allies,” she said.
