Angela Merkel shaped the history of Germany. She was the first woman to reach the Chancellery and led Europe’s economic locomotive for 16 consecutive years. Four mandates, between 2005 and 2021.
Today, almost four years after retiring, the conservative politician, who has refused to comment on political news since leaving government, launched write your memoirs in a book titled Free (Freedomin Spanish).
For the moment, little is known about what the book contains, which will be in bookstores this Tuesday November 26. However, in recent days, some material related to his mandate and the relationships he established with the leaders of other countries have leaked.
Chancellor Merkel attracts a lot of media attention every time she speaks at a European Council
Georgia and Ukraine, within NATO
One of the first pieces of information revealed concerns with Ukraine. More specifically, as the week progresses Timein her autobiography, Merkel defends her decision to prevent NATO entry into Ukraine and Georgia because we fear aggression from Russia. This happened in 2008 during a summit in Bucharest during which Merkel thwarted the intention of some members to invite these two countries to develop. an access roadmap to the organization.
“Ukraine and Georgia had requested the status of candidate country for membership (called MAP). A decision by Bucharest would not have automatically meant accession, but politically it would have represented something irreversible. It would have been the start of the third NATO enlargement after 1999 and 2004. “, explains the former chancellor. And this, he asserts, “Putin would have received it as a yes to membership and as a challenge”.
“I thought it was an illusion to assume that the status of the MAP would have given Ukraine and Georgia protection against Putin’s aggression, that this status would have had such a deterrent effect that Putin would have passively accepted events,” said the former president. At that time, in addition, the Russian fleet was deployed in the Black Sea, near the Ukrainian Crimean peninsulaillegally annexed in 2014. The same year, in the summer of 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia.
Trump, admirer of Putin
In his memoirs, which extend 700 pagesMerkel also talks about Donald Trump, with whom she had tense relations during the first Republican term. Specifically, according to the German weekly, during his first meeting with Trump in 2017, the former German leader noted that Trump seemed “fascinated.” by autocratic leaders and said he admired Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Concerning this first interview with Trump, Merkel admits that she did not let him “a good feeling”. And before their face-to-face meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, he ignored the request of reporters and photographers for another handshake, despite suggestions from the chancellor to repeat the gesture carried out in front of the entrance to the building.
Zelensky, Merkel, Macron and Putin, after a meeting in Paris in 2019.
During the conversation, Trump continued your “usual” opinions against Germany, which he accuses of having been ruined by welcoming refugees in 2015 and 2016, of not investing in military spending and of adopting unfair trade practices. Merkel in turn assures that she responded based on facts, but that she met someone who took action. “emotionally” and only listened to their arguments to “transform them into new critiques”. “Solving problems did not seem to be their goal,” observes the German. This frustration of having to deal with other difficult leaders even led her to seek advice from Pope Francis during a visit to the Vatican.
In favor of Kamala Harris
Angela Merkel did not stop writing her memoirs until the last moment. It is for this reason that his book also contains his wish “with all my heart” that it was Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, who won the American presidential election on November 5. According to TimeMerkel wanted to see a woman at the head of the most powerful country in the world. “As I write these lines, the result of the US presidential election in November 2024 remains open,” says Merkel in her opening pages.
The open door policy
The former chancellor also dares to talk about one of the most controversial decisions she made during the 16 years of her mandate: that of having kept the borders open during the immigration crisis of 2015. And he does it to defend his position. “I had the feeling that if we had not kept the borders open, all our talk about European values and human dignity would have lost all credibility,” he told the magazine. The Spiegel during an interview.
“The idea, for example, of stopping migrants with water cannons at the German border seemed horrible to me and in any case it would not have been a solution,” he added. Furthermore, he insisted that the solution to the problem of illegal migration It must be a European solution because, he asserts, the opposite could lead to “a setback in European integration with unpredictable consequences”.
In this sense, Merkel took the opportunity to distance herself from the current position of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), now led by the candidate for chancellor. Frédéric Merzwhich calls for the immediate return of immigrants to the border. “It still seems wrong to me, it’s an illusion to believe that everything will be solved if we reject immigrants in German borders“, he stressed.
Criticism of the CDU
This is not the only criticism that the former president launches against the formation that she led for decades. According to him, according to the leaks, the conservative blocThe , formed by the CDU but also by the Christian Social Union (CSU), should remain open to a possible coalition with the Greens in the run-up to the early legislative elections which will be held in February 2025.
This means that Merkel opposes the position of CDU leader and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, who has repeatedly ruled out an alliance with the Greens. “The way Markus Söder and other members of the CSU and CDU talk about the Greens does not seem correct to me,” he said. The Spiegel.
