Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel highlights the refugee crisis and the pandemic of the new coronavirus as the biggest challenges of her 16-year term in an interview with Deutsche Welle. Ms Merkel, who in 2015 said “we will make it”, about the refugee, now expresses the belief that “we made it”. He does not want to talk about life “after politics” yet. As for life without Merkel: we will get used to it, he says.
“The two events that I think were the biggest challenges were firstly the large number of refugees who came here in 2015 – I do not want to talk about a crisis, people are people – and secondly the coronavirus pandemic. Perhaps these were the crises in which we saw clearly how people are directly affected and how human lives hang in the balance. “For me, these were the biggest challenges,” Merkel told Deutsche Welle shortly before leaving office.
Asked to comment on her now-famous 2015 refugee statement, “We will make it,” the chancellor admits that not everything went as it should, but it was a great success how many refugees were accepted in Germany and how many still live and work. in the country”. “It simply came to our notice then. “And I mean ‘we’, a large number of people in Germany who helped us do it.”
Referring to the challenge of climate change, Angela Merkel says she is proud of Germany’s gradual de-lignification, but expresses her disappointment that the outcome of climate policy so far has not been satisfactory. “We always need majorities in our decisions. It’s something I often discuss with activists. They say ‘you have to do this now’ and I say ‘but I need a majority’. There were great demands from society and many fears. I have always been committed to these goals and again I can not say today that the result is satisfactory “, he points out, while asking the European Union to move faster towards the climate goals.
Asked about the presence of Finance Minister and possibly next Chancellor Olaf Soltz (SPD) with her at the recent G20 Summit in Rome, Angela Merkel said “it was important to show that the current Chancellor and her possible successor are working well together.” This sends “a reassuring message to a rather troubled world. “I thought that was the right thing to do,” he said.
Mrs Merkel was asked, among other things, what she would do when she left the chancellery, to reiterate once again that she did not know, as she would like a period of calm. “I want to see what comes to my mind to do,” he added, adding that he would love to read and sleep. As for the fact that for the first time in 16 years there will be another chancellor, Mrs. Merkel simply says: “you will get used to it”.
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