BERLIN: Angela Merkel will leave office as one of modern Germany’s longest-serving leaders and a global diplomatic heavyweight, with a legacy defined by her management of a succession of crises that shook a fragile Europe rather than any grand visions for her own country.
In 16 years at the helm of Europe’s biggest economy, Merkel did end military conscription, set Germany on course for a future without nuclear and fossil-fueled power, enable the legalization of same-sex marriage, introduce a national minimum wage and benefits encouraging fathers to look after young children, among other things.
But a senior ally recently summed up what many view as her main service: as an anchor of stability in stormy times. He told Merkel: “You protected our country well.”
“All the major crossroads you had to navigate ... we never mapped out in any election program — they came overnight and you had to govern well,” Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said.
Merkel passed her first test in 2008, pledging at the height of the global financial crisis that Germans’ savings were safe. Over the following years, she was a leading figure in the effort to save the euro currency from the debt crisis that engulfed several members, agreeing to bailouts but insisting on painful spending cuts.
In 2015, Merkel was the face of a welcoming approach to migrants as people fleeing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere trekked across the Balkans. She allowed in hundreds of thousands and insisted that “we will manage” the influx, but ran into resistance both at home and among European partners.
And in the twilight of her career — she announced in 2018 that she wouldn’t seek a fifth term — she led a COVID-19 response that saw Germany fare better than some of its peers.
On the international stage, Merkel insisted on seeking compromises and pursuing a multilateral approach to the world’s problems through years of turbulence that saw the US drift apart from European allies under President Donald Trump and Britain leave the European Union.
“I think Ms. Merkel’s most important legacy is simply that, in such a time of worldwide crises, she provided for stability,” said Ralph Bollmann, a biographer of Merkel and a journalist with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper.
There was “a constant succession of crises that were really existential threats and raised questions over the world order we are used to, and her achievement is that she led Germany, Europe and perhaps to some extent the world fairly safely through that, for all that you can criticize details,” Bollmann said.
Before winning the top job in 2005, he noted, Merkel campaigned as “a chancellor of change, who wanted to make Germany more modern,” seeking deeper economic reforms and a more socially liberal approach than her center-right party had previously taken.
But she ditched much of her economic agenda after almost blowing a huge poll lead by turning off voters with talk of far-reaching reforms, instead embracing what she called an approach of “many small steps.” Along with a pragmatic willingness to jettison conservative orthodoxy such as conscription when opportune, it enabled her to dominate the center ground of German politics.
Crises consumed so much energy that “not much time was left to deal with other issues,” Bollmann said. There is plenty of unfinished business: Merkel has conceded that “the lack of digitization in our society” is a problem, ranging from notoriously patchy cell phone reception to many health offices using faxes to transmit data during the pandemic.
Merkel’s political longevity is already historic. Among democratic Germany’s post-World War II leaders, she lags only Helmut Kohl, who led the country to reunification during his 1982-98 tenure. She could overtake even him if she is still in office on Dec. 17. That’s feasible if parties are slow to form a new government after the Sept. 26 election.
Merkel, 67, insists that others must judge her record. Still, she highlighted a few achievements at a rare campaign appearance last month, starting with the reduction of the number of unemployed in Germany from over 5 million in 2005 to under 2.6 million now.
Predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, whose welfare-state trims and economic reforms were beginning to kick in when he left office, arguably deserves part of the credit.
Merkel also inherited a plan to exit nuclear power from Schroeder, but abruptly accelerated it following the meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011. More recently, she set in motion Germany’s exit from coal-fueled power.
The chancellor pointed to progress on renewable energy, saying its share of the German energy mix has risen from 10 percent to well over 40 percent. Merkel was often referred to as the “climate chancellor” in her early years, but also has drawn criticism for moving too slowly; her government this year moved forward the date for reducing German greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” to 2045, after the country’s top court ruled that previous plans place too much of the burden on young people.
Merkel praised her government’s drive to improve Germany’s public finances, which enabled it to stop running up new debt from 2014 until the coronavirus pandemic pushed it into huge rescue packages. Opponents argue that it skimped on necessary investments in infrastructure.
“I could talk about how we saved the euro,” she said, adding that “our principle of combining the affected countries’ own responsibility with solidarity was exactly the right method to give the euro a future.” Merkel’s austerity-heavy approach was resented deeply in parts of Europe and controversial among economists, but allowed her to overcome reluctance at home to bail out strugglers.
Whatever the ultimate verdict, Merkel can celebrate a unique end to her tenure: she is set to become the first German chancellor to leave power when she chooses.
Merkel steps down with legacy dominated by tackling crises
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Merkel steps down with legacy dominated by tackling crises
- Among democratic Germany’s post-World War II leaders, she lags only Helmut Kohl, who led the country to reunification during his 1982-98 tenure
- Merkel also inherited a plan to exit nuclear power from Schroeder, but abruptly accelerated it following the meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima plant in 2011
Zelensky tells US House speaker: quick passage of military aid is vital
“We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelensky said
KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky told the speaker of the US House of Representatives during a phone call on Thursday that it was vital that Congress passes a new military aid package for Kyiv rapidly.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has held up a bill for months that would supply $60 billion in military and financial aid for Ukraine.
“Quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital. We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelensky said on X.
Ukrainian troops are on the back foot on the battlefield, facing shortages of artillery supplies with the US assistance held up in Congress and the European Union failing to deliver on time munitions that it had promised earlier.
In a statement, Zelensky said he briefed Johnson about the situation on the battlefield and also spoke about “the dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror.”
Last Friday, Russia conducted its largest air strike on Ukraine’s energy system since invading in February 2022, damaging power units at a major dam and causing blackouts for more than a million people.
Moscow has described its recent attacks as part of a series of “revenge” strikes in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian regions. Russia has increased its use of harder-to-stop ballistic missiles. It denies targeting civilians, though many have been killed in its strikes.
Poland raids Russian spy network targeting EU
- The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia
- The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions
WARSAW: Polish security services said Thursday they had raided a Russian spy network in cooperation with Czech intelligence, which a day earlier had busted a major Russian propaganda network.
The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia.
“The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions,” agency spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski said on social media.
He added in a statement that the agency had carried out raids in the capital Warsaw and the southern city of Tychy and interrogations in connection with the case.
He said the spy network’s “goal was to implement the Kremlin’s foreign policy objectives, including weakening Poland’s position on the world stage, discrediting Ukraine as well as the image of EU organs.”
“The operations carried out are the result of the agency’s international cooperation with a number of European services, coordinated in particular with Czech partners.”
Dobrzynski added that the security agency’s operations began from an investigation that in January resulted in charges against a Polish citizen suspected of Russian espionage.
“The man, embedded in Polish and EU parliament circles, carried out tasks commissioned and financed by colleagues from Russian intelligence,” he said in the statement.
These tasks notably included “propaganda activity, disinformation as well as political provocation. Their objective was to build Russian spheres of influence in Europe.”
The security agency has not revealed the man’s identity.
The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it had busted a Moscow-financed network that spread Russian propaganda and wielded influence across Europe, including in the European Parliament.
Prague said the group used the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site to spread information seeking to discourage the European Union from sending aid to Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.
The Czech government has added the Voice of Europe and two pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians — Viktor Medvedchuk and Artem Marchevsky — to its sanctions list in relation to the network’s activities.
The Denik N daily said the news site had published statements by politicians demanding the EU halt aid to Ukraine.
Some European politicians cooperating with the news site were paid from Russian funds that in some cases also covered their 2024 EU election campaign, the daily adds.
The payments targeted politicians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland, Denik N said, citing a Czech foreign ministry source.
Asked about the network, a spokeswoman for the German interior ministry said “this case is another example of Russia’s extensive and wide-ranging influence activities.”
“The Federal Republic of Germany also remains an important target of Russian influence operations,” she told AFP.
“The German security authorities will continue to use all available means and in cooperation with their foreign partners to investigate such influence operations and take measures to prevent them.”
Moscow attack death toll rises to 143: authorities
- By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital
- The previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment
MOSCOW: The death toll from the attack on a Moscow concert hall claimed by Islamic extremists rose on Wednesday to 143, Russian authorities said.
Authorities listed the names of the dead on the Russian ministry for civil defense and emergency situations five days after last Friday’s attack, the deadliest claimed to date by Daesh on European soil and the worst in Russia in two decades.
By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital, TASS news agency quoted Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko as saying.
An anonymous medical source told TASS 205 people had received outpatient care.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova told reporters the previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment.
On Friday, gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow, also setting fire to the venue.
Four attack suspects — all from Tajikistan according to Russian state media — are under arrest along with several suspected accomplices.
A Moscow court has ordered the men be held in pre-trial detention until May 22 — a date likely to be extended until a full trial.
Russia said Saturday it had arrested 11 people in connection with the attack. There has been no information on the other seven.
The attack was swiftly claimed by Daesh although Moscow has repeated its initial line of a link to Ukraine.
Kyiv rejects any involvement.
Russia has for some years been a target of Daesh owing to its role in suppressing unrest in regions with a substantial Muslim majority as well as its support for the regime in Syria’s civil war.
On Monday, three days after the attack, President Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time that the presumed gunmen were radical Islamists but continued to insist on a link to Ukraine, saying the perpetrators were headed there when they were caught some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the border.
French parliament condemns 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians
- In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria
- The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon”
PARIS: The French parliament’s lower house on Thursday approved a resolution condemning as “bloody and murderous repression” the killing by Paris police of dozens of Algerians in a crackdown on a 1961 protest to support Algerian independence.
In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria.
Dozens of peaceful demonstrators died during a crackdown by Paris police on a protest by Algerians in 1961. The scale of the massacre was covered up for decades by French authorities before President Emmanuel Macron condemned it as “inexcusable” in 2021.
The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon” and also called for the official commemoration of the massacre.
The bill, put forward by Greens lawmaker Sabrina Sebaihi and ruling Renaissance party MP Julie Delpech, was approved by 67 lawmakers, mainly representatives of the left and Macron’s party.
Eleven voted against, all members of the far-right National Rally party.
Sebaihi said the vote represented the “first step” toward the “recognition of this colonial crime, the recognition of this state crime.”
The term “state crime” however does not appear in the text of the resolution, which was jointly drafted by Macron’s party and the Elysee Palace. The subject remains highly sensitive both in France and Algeria.
The Paris police chief at the time, Papon, was in the 1980s revealed to have been a collaborator with the occupying Nazis in World War II and complicit in the deportation of Jews. He was convicted of crimes against humanity but later released.
On the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed in 2021, Macron acknowledged that several dozen protesters had been killed, “their bodies thrown into the River Seine.”
The precise number of victims has never been made clear and some activists fear several hundred could have been killed.
“Let us spare a thought here today for these victims and their families, who have been hit hard by the spiral of violence,” Dominique Faure, the minister for local and regional authorities, said on Thursday.
She noted that efforts had been made in the past to recognize the massacre.
In 2012, then president Francois Hollande paid “tribute to the victims” of a “bloody crackdown” on the men and women demonstrating for “the right to independence.”
The rally was called in the final year of France’s increasingly violent attempt to retain Algeria as a north African colony, and in the middle of a bombing campaign targeting mainland France by pro-independence militants.
However, Faure expressed reservations about establishing a special day to commemorate the massacre, pointing out that three dates already existed to “commemorate what happened during the Algerian war.”
“Much remains to be done to write this history, but in my opinion this is the only way to build a sincere and lasting reconciliation,” she said.
“I think it is important to let history do the work before considering a new day of commemoration specifically for the victims of October 17, 1961.”
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is set to travel to France for a state visit, scheduled for late September or early October, according to the Elysee.
However, National Rally lawmaker Frank Giletti criticized “excessive repentance” based on “lies.”
“By proposing this resolution, you are following in the footsteps of Emmanuel Macron, who has never stopped kneeling before the Algerian government, and who is working to mortify his own country through continuous repentance that has become unbearable,” he said.
France has made several attempts over the years to heal the wounds with Algeria, but it refuses to “apologize or repent” for the 132 years of often brutal rule that ended in 1962 after a devastating eight-year war.
French historians say half a million civilians and combatants died during the war for independence, 400,000 of them Algerian. The Algerian authorities say 1.5 million were killed.
France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website
- The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority
- A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, the French defense ministry said
PARIS: French authorities have uncovered a website containing a fake recruitment drive for French volunteers to join the war in Ukraine, the defense ministry said on Thursday.
The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without giving further details on the nature of the operation.
The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority.
A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defense ministry said.
“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign.”
The ministry did not name any suspects in the website spoof, but a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine.”
French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refusing to rule out sending ground troops and insisting Europe had to do all that was needed for a Russian defeat.
Similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving toward the Ukrainian border, the official said.
The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.
The defense ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.
The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilization campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.