Angela Dorothea Merkel (; born 17 July 1954) is a German stateswoman and retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office and the only from former East Germany. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018.
Merkel was born in Hamburg in West Germany. Her family moved to East Germany when she was an infant. A member of the communist East German Free German Youth (FDJ), Merkel obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. She then entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected government of East Germany, led by Lothar de Maizière. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, later becoming Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After the CDU lost the 1998 federal election, Merkel was elected general secretary of the party. She then became the party's first female leader, and the first female leader of the Opposition, two years later.
Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was elected chancellor, leading a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). She was the first woman to be elected chancellor, and the first chancellor of reunified Germany to have been raised in the former East Germany. In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel subsequently formed a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP), an alliance more favourable to the CDU than the grand coalition. In the 2013 federal election, the CDU won a landslide victory and formed a second grand coalition with the SPD, after the FDP lost all of its representation in the Bundestag. In the 2017 federal election, Merkel led the CDU to become the largest party for the fourth time, resulting in the formation of a third grand coalition with the SPD.
In foreign policy, Merkel emphasised international cooperation, both in the context of the EU and NATO, and initiating the Russian reset and strengthening of Eurasian and transatlantic economic relations. In the first half of 2007, Merkel served as president of the European Council and played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. Merkel's governments managed the 2008 financial crisis and the Euro area crisis. She negotiated the 2008 European Union stimulus plan, which focused on infrastructure spending and public investment to counteract the Great Recession. Also in 2008, she actively blocked the access of Ukraine and Georgia in the enlargement of NATO during the 2008 Bucharest summit.
In domestic policy, Merkel's Energiewende programme supported the development of renewable energy sources and eventually phased out the use of nuclear power in Germany. Despite the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, which prompted sanctions around the world, she initiated the construction of the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipelines to Russia and protected their construction from United States sanctions imposed in 2019. Reforms to the , health care reform, the 2010s European migrant crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic were major issues during her chancellorship. Merkel stepped down as leader of the CDU in 2018 and did not seek a fifth term as chancellor in the 2021 federal election. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, her legacy came under increased scrutiny both in Germany and abroad for her relatively good relations with Russia and increasing the German economy's dependence on Russia, as well as the downsizing of the Bundeswehr that occurred during her tenure.
Background and early life
thumb|left|180px|Merkel's paternal grandparents when engaged: Margarethe and her betrothed, Ludwik Marian Kaźmierczak, in his Polish [[Blue Army (Poland)|Blue Army uniform]]
Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in 1954, in the Eimsbüttel quarter of Hamburg, the daughter of Horst Kasner (1926–2011; né ), a Lutheran pastor and a native of Berlin, and his wife Herlind (1928–2019; née Jentzsch), born in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), a teacher of English and Latin. She has two younger siblings, Marcus Kasner, a physicist, and Irene Kasner, an occupational therapist. In her childhood and youth, Merkel was known among her peers by the nickname "Kasi", derived from her last name Kasner.
Merkel is of German and Polish descent. Her paternal grandfather, Ludwik Kasner, was a German policeman of Polish ethnicity. After being captured in France during World War I, he joined the Blue Army and likely fought against Germany. He married Merkel's grandmother Margarethe, a German from Berlin, and relocated to her hometown where he again worked in the police. In 1930, they Germanised the Polish name Kaźmierczak to Kasner. Merkel's maternal grandparents were the Danzig politician Willi Jentzsch and Gertrud Alma (née Drange), a daughter of the city clerk of Elbing (now Elbląg, Poland) Emil Drange. Since the mid-1990s, Merkel has publicly mentioned her Polish heritage on several occasions and described herself as a quarter Polish, but her Polish roots became better known as a result of a 2013 biography.
Religion played a key role in the Kasner family's migration from West Germany to East Germany. Merkel's paternal grandfather was originally Catholic but the entire family converted to Lutheranism during the childhood of her father,
In 1968, Merkel joined the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official communist youth movement sponsored by the ruling Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Membership was nominally voluntary, but those who did not join found it difficult to gain admission to higher education. She did not participate in the secular coming-of-age ceremony Jugendweihe, however, which was common in East Germany. Instead, she was confirmed. During this time, she participated in several compulsory courses on Marxism–Leninism, with her grades only being regarded as "sufficient". Merkel later said that "Life in the GDR was sometimes almost comfortable in a certain way, because there were some things one simply couldn't influence." Merkel learned to speak Russian fluently at school, and she was awarded prizes for her proficiency in Russian and mathematics, being at the top of her class in these subjects. She completed her school education with the best possible average Abitur grade of 1.0.
Academic career
Merkel continued her education at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978.
Near the end of her studies, Merkel sought an assistant professorship at an engineering school. As a condition for getting the job, Merkel was told she would need to agree to report on her colleagues to officers of the Stasi. Merkel declined, using the excuse that she could not keep secrets well enough to be an effective spy. At the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of its FDJ secretariat. According to her former colleagues, she openly propagated Marxism as the secretary for "Agitation and Propaganda". However, Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors. She stated: "I can only rely on my memory, if something turns out to be different, I can live with that." she worked as a researcher and published several academic papers. In 1986, she was allowed to travel to West Germany to attend a congress. She also participated in a multi-week Russian language course in Donetsk, in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Early political career
1989–1990: German reunification
thumb|left|upright=1.1|[[Lothar de Maizière and Merkel, 1990]]
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 served as the catalyst for Merkel's political career.
De Maizière was impressed with the way Merkel handled journalists investigating Schnur's role in the Stasi. In April 1990, the DA merged with the East German Christian Democratic Union, which in turn merged with its western counterpart after reunification.
1990–1994: Minister for Women and Youth
Elections
In the German federal election of 1990, the first to be held following reunification, Merkel successfully stood for election to the Bundestag in the parliamentary constituency of Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen in North Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. She received the crucial backing of influential CDU minister and state party chairman Günther Krause. She was re-elected from this constituency (renamed, with slightly adjusted borders, Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I in 2003) in every election until the CDU lost its direct mandate from the constituency in the 2021 federal election. Almost immediately following her entry into parliament, Merkel was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to serve as Minister for Women and Youth in the federal cabinet.
In November 1991, Merkel, with the support of the federal CDU, ran for the state leadership of the CDU in the state of Brandenburg, which neighbours Berlin. She lost to Ulf Fink. In June 1993, Merkel was elected leader of the CDU in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, succeeding her former mentor Günther Krause.
Policy
Although Merkel had little interest in the political position as such, it has been described as instrumental in building her early political image. During her tenure, the government codified the right to preschool education, although the law only went into effect in 1996. In June 1992, § 218 of the StGB, which governed abortion rights, was rewritten to allow abortions until the 12th week of pregnancy. Though she was personally opposed to abortion at the time, Merkel abstained during the vote on the bill. The law was later overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court on the basis that there must be a general prohibition of abortion.
1994–1998: Minister for the Environment
thumb|upright|Merkel in a CDU campaign poster, 1995|left
In 1994, she was promoted to the position of Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her personal political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest Cabinet Minister, she was frequently referred to by Kohl as "my girl" (). During this period, she was closely mentored by Kohl. Around this time, she also first hired Beate Baumann, who would remain a close advisor to Merkel.
In the wake of this defeat on the federal level, Merkel oversaw a string of CDU election victories in six out of seven state elections in 1999, breaking the long-standing SPD-Green hold on the Bundesrat. Following a party funding scandal that compromised many leading figures of the CDUincluding Kohl himself and his successor as CDU Leader, Wolfgang SchäubleMerkel criticised her former mentor publicly and advocated a fresh start for the party without him. Her election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been elected to lead; Merkel is a centrist Protestant originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.
thumb|upright|left|Merkel and Russian president [[Vladimir Putin in Moscow, 8 February 2002]]
Following Merkel's election as CDU Leader, the CDU did not obtain electoral victories in subsequent state elections. In February 2001, her rival Friedrich Merz voiced his intention to become Gerhard Schröder's main challenger for Chancellorship in the 2002 election. Merkel's ambition to become Chancellor was well-known, but she lacked the support of the most influential members within her own party. Rival candidate and leader of the CSU Edmund Stoiber was much more popular within the party at the time. In a private negotiation that came to be known as the Merkel agreed to cede the opportunity to challenge Schröder to Stoiber; in exchange, she was to become leader of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag following the election. Although pre-election polling had indicated that voters strongly favoured Stoiber, he went on to lose the election by a thin margin. The election campaign was dominated by the Iraq War. While Chancellor Schröder had made clear he would not join the war in Iraq, Merkel was in support of the war at the time, although she later claimed that she had opposed it.
2002–2005: Leader of the Opposition
After Stoiber's defeat in 2002, in addition to her role as CDU Leader, Merkel became Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag, as had been agreed upon between her and Stoiber. Friedrich Merz, who had held the post prior to the 2002 election, was eased out to make way for Merkel.
Merkel supported a substantial reform agenda for Germany's economic and social system and was considered more pro-market than her own party (the CDU). She advocated German labour law changes, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week. She argued that existing laws made the country less competitive, because companies could not easily control labour costs when business was slow.
Merkel argued that Germany should phase out nuclear power less quickly than the Schröder administration had planned.
Merkel advocated a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, describing it as "unavoidable".
Chancellorship (2005–2021)
2005–2009: First CDU–SPD grand coalition
Election
On 30 May 2005, Merkel won the CDU/CSU nomination to challenge Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD in the 2005 federal elections. Her party began the campaign with a 21point lead over the SPD in national opinion polls, although her personal popularity lagged behind that of the incumbent. However, the CDU/CSU campaign suffered when Merkel, having made economic competence central to the CDU's platform, confused gross and net income twice during a televised debate. She regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance. This was compounded by Merkel's proposal to increase VAT to reduce Germany's deficit and fill the gap in revenue from a flat tax. The SPD were able to increase their support simply by pledging not to introduce flat taxes or increase VAT. The CDU's lead was down to 9 percentage points on the eve of the election, with Merkel having a significant lead in popularity based on opinion polls. On 18 September 2005, Merkel's CDU/CSU and Schröder's SPD went head-to-head in the national elections, with the CDU/CSU winning 35.2% (CDU 27.8% / CSU 7.5%) The deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14 November 2005.
Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted against her. Reports at the time indicated that the grand coalition would pursue a mix of policies, some of which differed from Merkel's political platform as leader of the opposition and candidate for Chancellor. The coalition's intent was to cut public spending whilst increasing VAT (from 16 to 19%), social insurance contributions and the top rate of income tax.
When announcing the coalition agreement, Merkel stated that the main aim of her government would be to reduce unemployment, and that it was this issue on which her government would be judged.
Healthcare reform
Reform of the German healthcare system was a salient issue during the 2005 election; the previous system had been criticised as inefficient and overly bureaucratic. After a significant period of negotiations, a deal was passed in 2006. While this agreement was described as having "saved the coalition government", it was also widely criticised as ineffectual. The deal also increased the tax burden on employers and their publicly insured employees. The 2006 round of reforms introduced the "health insurance duty", which establishes that individuals must be insured either through the public insurance system or through private insurance firms and accordingly cannot be uninsured. The reforms also targeted preventive healthcare as a priority, particularly with regards to eldercare. Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that the government would guarantee private savings account deposits, after all. However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be backed by legislation. Most other European governments eventually either raised the limits or promised to guarantee savings in full.
At the time of the Greek government-debt crisis, Germany was the largest creditor of the Greek government, giving it significant negotiating power. Merkel is often credited as having "saved the Euro", primarily due to her coordinating role in the development of debt relief policy. The austerity measures imposed on debtors such as Greece, which were a significant part of Merkel's position in the negotiations, have been criticised as overly harsh by some observers. A Bloomberg opinion piece noted that "irresponsible borrowers can't exist without irresponsible lenders"; accordingly, "Germany's banks were Greece's enablers."
In the course of the 2008 financial crisis, the Merkel cabinet increased the budget of the Kurzarbeit programme significantly and extended the permitted duration of such contracts from 6 months to 18 months. Although similar provisions had existed previously, the Merkel cabinet's expansion of the programme was widely praised and is credited with having saved 500,000 jobs during the 2008 financial crisis.
2009–2013: CDU–FDP coalition
Merkel's CDU was re-elected in 2009 with an increased number of seats and could form a governing coalition with the FDP. After brief negotiations, the second Merkel cabinet was sworn in on 28 October 2009. In early 2011, Merkel's approval ratings plummeted, resulting in heavy losses in state elections for her party. An August 2011 poll found her coalition had only 36% support compared to a rival potential coalition's 51%. Notwithstanding the effects of the 2008 financial crisis, unemployment sank below 3 million unemployed people in 2011.
Abolition of conscription
Following increased debate on the subject in the summer of 2010, the German government announced plans to abolish conscription in Germany, making the a volunteer military, in November 2010. The decision was finalised in December that year, and conscription was suspended on 1 July 2011. Although somewhat popular at the time, the decision has later come under scrutiny, particularly following to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has also been criticised in conjunction with Germany's financial commitments to NATO. In 2023, 61% of Germans said that they were in favour of reestablishing conscription.
Healthcare reform
Responding to a budget deficit of billion in the public healthcare system in 2009, the Merkel government passed widely unpopular healthcare reforms in 2010. The changes reduced healthcare spending in certain areas and increased employer and employee contributions to 15.5% of gross wages. The reforms also established that future contribution increases would only affect the contributions by employers, which was criticised by opposition parties and trade unions. However, their preferred coalition partner, the FDP, failed to enter parliament for the first time since 1949, being below the minimum of 5% of second votes required to enter parliament.
The CDU/CSU turned to the SPD to form the third grand coalition in postwar German history and the second under Merkel's leadership. The third Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 17 December 2013.
Merkel scored well in opinion polls on her handling of the recent euro crisis (69% rated her performance as good rather than poor), and her approval rating reached an all-time high of 77% in February 2012 and again in July 2014.
2015 European migrant crisis
thumb|Spanish prime minister [[Pedro Sánchez (politician)|Pedro Sánchez and Merkel in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, 2018]]
Throughout the course of the European migrant crisis, Merkel encouraged cooperation between EU member states, urging that Europe needs to act "as a whole".
In late August 2015, at the height of the crisis, Merkel's government suspended the Dublin Regulation, which stipulated that asylum seekers must seek asylum in the first EU country they arrive in. Merkel announced that Germany would also process asylum applications from Syrian refugees if they had come to Germany through other EU countries. That year, nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers entered Germany. Merkel coined the phrase (literally 'We can do this') around this time.
Junior coalition partner and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany could take in 500,000 refugees annually for the next several years. German opposition to the government's admission of the new wave of migrants was strong and coupled with a rise in anti-immigration protests. Merkel insisted that Germany had the economic strength to cope with the influx of migrants and reiterated that there is no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants Germany can take. In September 2015, enthusiastic crowds across the country welcomed arriving refugees and migrants.
Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU)the sister party of Merkel's Christian Democratic Unionand then-Bavarian Minister President, attacked Merkel's policies. Seehofer criticised Merkel's decision to allow in migrants, saying that "[they were] in a state of mind without rules, without system and without order because of a German decision." Seehofer argued that as many as 30% of asylum seekers arriving in Germany claiming to be from Syria are in fact from other countries. He argued for a punitive reduction in EU funding for member countries that rejected mandatory refugee quotas. Meanwhile, Yasmin Fahimi, secretary-general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner of the ruling coalition, praised Merkel's policy allowing migrants in Hungary to enter Germany as "a strong signal of humanity to show that Europe's values are valid also in difficult times".
In November 2015, there were talks inside the governing coalition to stop family unification for migrants for two years and to establish "Transit Zones" on the border. Additionally, there were plans to provide housing to migrants with a low likelihood of getting approved for asylum until the processing of their application. This led to increased tensions between the CSU, who were generally in favour of these measures and threatened to leave the coalition without them, and the SPD, who opposed them; Merkel agreed to the measures. The November 2015 Paris attacks prompted a reevaluation of the German government's stance on EU migration policy. While she did not directly limit the number of immigrants, Merkel tightened asylum policy in Germany, for example through more thorough vetting of migrants with respect to internal safety and security. Half of Germans did not want her to serve a fourth term in office, with only 42% in favour of another term in office. In a poll from October that year, her approval rating was found to have risen again; 54% of Germans were found to be satisfied with the work of Merkel as Chancellor. According to another poll taken in November 2016, 59% were to found to be in favour of a renewed Chancellorship candidature in 2017. According to a poll carried out shortly after the 2016 Berlin truck attack, 56% of Germans named Merkel as a political leader they trusted to solve their country's problems.
thumb|Migrants in Germany, October 2015
In October 2016, Merkel travelled to Mali and Niger. The diplomatic visit took place to discuss how their governments could improve conditions which caused people to flee those countries and how illegal migration through and from these countries could be reduced.
The migrant crisis spurred right-wing electoral preferences across Germany with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gaining 12% of the vote in the 2017 German federal election. These developments prompted debates over the reasons for increased right-wing populism in Germany. Some researchers have argued that increased right-wing preferences are a result of the European migrant crisis, particularly the increasingly common perception that refugees constitute an ethnic and cultural threat to Germany.
Some observers have described Merkel's policymaking with respect to the migrant crisis as a success. In 2022, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees granted Merkel the Nansen Award for her "courage and compassion" during the crisis. However, Merkel has also faced significant criticism, particularly with regards to her policymaking early in the crisis, which some critics describe as hypocritically unilateral.
2018–2021: Third CDU–SPD grand coalition
Election
In the 2017 federal election, Merkel led her party to victory for the fourth time. However, both the CDU/CSU and the SPD received a significantly lower proportion of the vote than they did in 2013, and the CDU/CSU subsequently attempted to form a coalition with the FDP and Greens. The SPD announced that they would go into the Opposition, both due to their loss of popular support and because the idea of another grand coalition was widely unpopular at the time.
The FDP eventually withdrew from negotiations with the CDU/CSU, leading to a stalemate. The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier subsequently appealed successfully to the SPD to change their hard stance against coalition with the CDU/CSU, and the SPD agreed to a third grand coalition with the CDU/CSU. The negotiations leading up to this agreement were the longest in German post-war history, lasting almost six months.
A YouGov survey published in late December 2017 found that just 36% of all respondents wanted Merkel to stay at the helm until 2021, while half of those surveyed voters called for a change at the top before the end of the legislature.
The Fourth Merkel cabinet was sworn in on 14 March 2018.
2018 government crisis
As part of the newly formed government, the CSU's Horst Seehofer took over the role of Interior Minister. Seehofer announced that he had a "master plan for faster asylum procedures, and more consistent deportations." Under Seehofer's plan, Germany would immediately reject prospective immigrants who had already been deported or were subject to an entry ban. Additionally, the police would be instructed to turn away all applicants who had previously registered elsewhere in the EU, no matter if these countries agreed to take them back. Merkel feared that unilaterally sending migrants back to neighbouring countries without seeking a multilateral European agreement could endanger the stability of the European Union.
In June 2018, Seehofer issued an ultimatum to Merkel; as Interior Minister, he could unilaterally implement the policy without her support. Although he eventually agreed to cooperate with Merkel while she negotiated with other EU member countries, he went on to reject the EU agreement that she obtained. On 1 July 2018, during a meeting with party leadership, Seehofer declared his intention to resign from his position in protest. During the night of 2 July 2018, Seehofer and Merkel announced they had settled their differences and agreed to instead accept a compromise of tighter border control. As a result of the agreement, Seehofer agreed to not resign, and to negotiate bilateral agreements with the specific countries himself. Seehofer received some criticism for his stance in the crisis.
COVID-19 pandemic
thumb|Merkel with UN Secretary-General [[António Guterres and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in Brussels, 24 June 2021]]
In the initial phases of the pandemic, Germany established a crisis team to manage Germany's containment policy and pandemic response. In late February 2020, referring to this crisis team, Merkel recommended an approach characterised by moderation and an avoidance of extreme or universal measures ().
On 18 March 2020, Merkel gave a widely publicised speech on the COVID-19 pandemic, comparing its challenges to the Second World War:
The speech was well-received both nationally and internationally, receiving widespread attention and an award for "speech of the year".
On 6 April 2020, Merkel stated: "In my view ... the European Union is facing the biggest test since its foundation and member states must show greater solidarity so that the bloc can emerge stronger from the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic". Merkel has won international plaudits for her handling of the pandemic in Germany. Merkel opposed mandatory vaccinations, instead stressing scientific literacy and education.
During the German presidency of the European Council, Merkel spearheaded negotiations for the Next Generation EU reconstruction package.
Succession
On 29 October 2018, Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of CDU at their party conference in December 2018, but intended to remain as chancellor until the 2021 German federal election was held. She stated that she did not plan to seek any political office after this. The resignations followed October setbacks for the CSU in the Bavarian state election and for the CDU in the Hessian state election. In August 2019, Merkel hinted that she might return to academia at the end of her term in 2021.
She decided not to suggest any person as her successor as leader of the CDU. However, political observers had long considered Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as Merkel's protégé groomed for succession. This view was confirmed when Kramp-Karrenbauer – widely seen as the chancellor's favourite for the post – was voted to succeed Merkel as leader of the CDU in December 2018. Kramp-Karrenbauer's elevation to Defence Minister after Ursula von der Leyen's departure to become president of the European Commission also boosted her standing as Merkel's most likely candidate for succession. In 2019, media outlets speculated that Kramp-Karrenbauer might take over Merkel's position as Chancellor sooner than planned if the current governing coalition proved unsustainable. The possibility was neither confirmed nor denied by the party. In February 2020, Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she would resign as party leader of the CDU in the summer, after party members in Thuringia defied official party lines and voted with Alternative for Germany to support an FDP candidate for minister-president. Kramp-Karrenbauer was succeeded by Armin Laschet at the 2021 CDU leadership election.
In the 2021 federal election, the SPD won the most votes. This necessitated long negotiations among the various parties to form a government. On 23 November 2021, a new coalition was announced, with Olaf Scholz nominated to succeed Merkel. Merkel continued to serve as chancellor until 8 December 2021, when Scholz was sworn in. The constituency she had held since its establishment in the German reunification was won by Anna Kassautzki (SPD).
Post–chancellorship (2021–present)
On 31 January 2022, less than two months after she left office, her long-time rival Friedrich Merz, whom she beat in 2002 to become leader of the opposition, took over as leader of the CDU.
On 25 February 2022, only 24 hours after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Merkel told the DPA that she "condemned in the strongest terms [...] the war of aggression led by Russia, which marks a profound break in the history of post-Cold War Europe."
In April that year, a spokesperson for Merkel stated that she "stood by her position at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008", when she had opposed Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance, a decision that had come under increased scrutiny.
She also said that by the end of her chancellorship in September 2021, it had been clear that Putin was moving in the direction of conflict and that he was finished with the Normandy Format talks.
Following her retirement, Merkel wrote a memoir called Freedom (), with her longtime assistant and adviser, Beate Baumann. It was released on 26 November 2024 with the title Freedom: Memories 1954–2021. The book was published in 30 languages and consists of 736 pages.
In January 2025, Merkel criticised Friedrich Merz for introducing a non-binding resolution supporting restrictions on immigration that passed in the Bundestag with the help of the AfD. Following the CDU/CSU's victory in the 2025 German federal election, Merkel attended the first round of voting in the Bundestag to elect Merz as Chancellor on 6 May 2025.
In October 2025 Merkel gave a long interview to Hungarian media in which she made a number of controversial statements, partly reverting her previous position. She said that in 2021 she attempted to build a "new diplomatic format" to speak to Putin "as EU", but this was "opposed by Poland and Baltic states" and then she left her position shortly before the war broke out in 2022, thus indirectly blaming the countries for the war. She also said that "coronavirus pandemic that played a decisive role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine" because Putin was afraid of the virus and didn't want to talk face to face.
Political positions
Immigration, refugees and migration
In October 2010, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany had "utterly failed", stating that: "The concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it" does not work and "we feel attached to the Christian concept of mankind, that is what defines us. Anyone who doesn't accept that is in the wrong place here." She continued to say that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values. This added to a growing debate within Germany on the acceptable levels and mechanisms of immigration, its effects on Germany, and the degree to which Muslim immigrants had integrated into German society.
Merkel is in favour of a "mandatory solidarity mechanism" for relocation of asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states as part of the long-term solution to Europe's migrant crisis.
Foreign policy
Merkel's foreign policy has focused on strengthening European cooperation and international trade agreements. She and her governments have been closely associated with the change through trade () policy. For this, she has come under criticism, especially after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor.
In 2015, with the absence of Stephen Harper, Merkel became the only leader to have attended every G20 meeting since the first in 2008, having been present at a record fifteen summits as of 2021. She hosted the twelfth meeting at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit.
Merkel favors the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. In December 2012, she stated that its implementation depends on reforms in Ukraine.
Merkel expressed support for Israel's right to self-defence in the context of the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. She telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 9 July to condemn "without reservation rocket fire on Israel".
On 20 June 2018, which was World Refugee Day, Merkel said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern European countries.
Social expenditure
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2013, Merkel said that Europe had only 7% of the global population and produced only 25% of the global GDP, but that it accounted for almost 50% of global social expenditure. She went on to say that Europe could only maintain its prosperity by being innovative and measuring itself against the best. After this, the comparison became a central element in major speeches. The international financial press has widely commented on her thesis, with The Economist saying: