EVER since the euro crisis broke in late 2009 this newspaper has criticised the world’s most powerful woman. We disagreed with Angela Merkel’s needlessly austere medicine: the continent’s recession has been unnecessarily long and brutal as a result. We wanted the chancellor to shrug off her cautious incrementalism and the mantle of her country’s history—and to lead Europe more forcefully. She is largely to blame for the failure to create a full banking union for the euro zone, the first of many institutional changes it still needs. She has refused to lead public opinion, never spelling out to her voters how much Germany is to blame for the euro mess (nor how much its banks have been rescued by its bail-outs). We also worry that she has not done enough at home: in recent years no country in the European Union has made fewer structural reforms, and her energy policies have landed Germany with high subsidies for renewables and high electricity prices.
And yet we believe Mrs Merkel is the right person to lead her country and thus Europe. That is partly because of what she is: the world’s most politically gifted democrat and a far safer bet than her leftist opponents. It is also partly because of what we believe she could still become—the great leader Germany and Europe so desperately needs.
Stick with Mutti
Politically, few can match Mrs Merkel. As other leaders have soared and dipped (Barack Obama and David Cameron spring to mind) or not taken off at all (poor François Hollande), she has remained both popular and trusted. And do not underestimate her achievement in holding Europe together. Greece has not fallen out of the euro; northern Europeans have paid for bail-outs; Spain and others have made reforms few thought possible; she helped get rid of clowns like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. The euro’s survival so far was not inevitable. » | From the print edition | Saturday, September 14, 2013
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