Angela Merkel faces her most serious political challenge yet.But Europe needs her more than ever.
THE ECONOMIST.- By contrast, in her ten years in office, Mrs Merkel has grown taller with every upheaval. In the debt crisis, she began as a ditherer but in the end held the euro zone together; over Ukraine, she corralled Europeans into imposing sanctions on Russia (its president, Vladimir Putin, thinks she is the only European leader worth talking to); and over migration she has boldly upheld European values, almost alone in her commitment to welcoming refugees.
It has become fashionable to see this as a progression from prudence and predominance to rashness and calamity. Critics assert that, with her welcoming attitude to asylum-seekers, Mrs Merkel has caused a flood that will both wreck Europe and, long before, also bring about her own political demise. Both arguments are wrong, as well as profoundly unfair. Mrs Merkel is more formidable than many assume (see article). And that is just as well: given the European Union’s many challenges, she is more than ever the indispensable European. Seguir leyendo...
