After Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, the ex-Chancellor is preparing to receive the Grand Cross of a special class despite criticism of her nuclear policy.
The ex-chancelier Angela Merkel is preparing to receive the highest German distinction this Monday despite the criticisms aimed at her balance sheet, in particular her nuclear policy and her alleged accommodations with Moscow.
Angela Merkel, who led Germany from 2005 to 2021, will receive the great-class special class from the hands of the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier this Monday at 6 p.m. locals. Only former Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl have so far received this distinction.
The former conservative leader, aged 68, nevertheless saw his star has pale since leaving the Chancellery in December 2021. In question in particular, his decisions in 2011 to turn his back on nuclear energy and in 2015, Open the doors to Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
Critics are now even emanating from his party, the CDU. The ex-chancellius, which succeeded the social democrat Olaf Scholz, had “great merits, especially internationally”. But she “also made mistakes, certain obvious”, estimated on the NTV Carsten Linnemann news channel, vice-president of the conservative party.
A inheritance tarnished by the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The abandonment of nuclear, accelerated by the Chancellor after the Fukushima disaster (Japan), was “an error” because it was decided “without saying how we were going to supply ourselves in more or less autonomous way”, according to him .
Carsten Linnemann also mentioned, among the “blatant errors”, the decision to open borders to refugees in 2015.
Angela Merkel, who left the Chancellery with popularity at the Zenith, also saw her heritage tarnished by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on the grounds that she would have been too accommodating with Vladimir Putin and would have accentuated German dependence at the ‘Russian energy. “At the end of his (fourth) mandate, our country was not in good condition,” said the secretary general of the Liberal Party FDP, Bijan Djir-Sarai.
A “diplomatic skill” and “empathetic wisdom”
Angela Merkel, who has set out to write her memoirs since she left the Chancellery, however receives praise, including her rivals from the SPD and the Greens.
“I particularly appreciate her diplomatic skill and her empathetic wisdom, thanks to which she has always managed to forge viable coalitions and compromises on the national and international scene,” said Saskia Esken, one of the leaders of the SPD.
Angela Merkel Chancellor “marked our country as few others”, abounds the co-leader of “Grünen”, Omid Nouripour, for whom “it is not necessary to agree with all of his action to recognize his great merits”.
