Farewell of Angela Merkel

On Friday, the lady who could keep herself cool, after 16 years as chancellor having been to many European Council (EUCO) summits (107 is the popular number floating around) German Chancellor Angela Merkel took her seat at the table to deliberate for the last time.

Chancellor Merkel greeting the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen at the Egmont Palace in Brussels

During her 16 long years at Germany’s helm, she was a Krisenmanagerin, or crisis manager, who always with a calm voice could have her say and mostly got what she wanted. As a pragmatist, Merkel may have helped the EU scrape through numerous existential crises to survive another day. She managed to keep the Eurozone together in 2015, because if Greece had exited it would have been more difficult to keep the Union together

Council President Charles Michel declared her a “monument” and said summits without the long-time chancellor was like Paris without the Eiffel Tower.

He praised her “extreme sobriety and simplicity”, which he said was

“a very powerful seduction weapon”.

“You are a compass,”

he said,

“a shining light of our European project”.

 

EU leader Charles Michel gave Mrs Merkel a model symbolising the European Council (EUCO) summit venue.

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Find to read:

• 2016 in review Politics #2 Persons of the year
• ‘A shining light’: EU leaders bid farewell to Merkel at summit
• Merkel: farewell to EU Colossus
• Merkel legacy: EU’s queen with a tarnished crown
• EU leaders give Merkel an ovation at final summit
• How Germans will look back on Angela Merkel

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Preceding

A special anniversary for the Church where Catholics and Protestants find common ground

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Additional reading

1. At the closing hours of 2016 #2 Low but also highlights
2. Reactions against Hungary and UEFA
3. France, Germany Propose EU Summit With Russia’s Putin, Diplomats Say

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