The opinion on her victory differs and I think she is a terrible politician. She basically ensured that Germany is isolated and without allies in the EU. The Germans have this problem as they think because they are the biggest economy in the EU that all other countries should follow the German model. The idiotic bailouts largely financed by Germany were a mistake and as a condition the Germans forced their will on the periphery.
Nothing good has come out of it and in essence what Germany does now is the same the Nazis did with the difference being they use economic weapons rather than the military and we all know money is a more powerful weapon than the military. One thing that plenty ignore is that Germany has introduced what some refer to as modern slavery into their labor market in order to push down the unemployment rate artificially. While lowering the unemployment rate it also exploits workers and everyone with a bit of understanding knows that the German labor laws are terrible.
There are plenty other areas where Germany fails, such as finance and domestic economy, and plenty of German CEO’s do seek change, but voters for now have decided to hand Merkel her third term and I think
she will use it to convince them to vote for the opposition (which in my opinion is even worse) next time. Unless the EU engages into some structural reforms as the UK demanded, it is doomed to collapse even before the US will.
Die Tageszeitung says the red-green opposition movement is practically dead: “They also lost in 2005 and 2009. There’s no indication that that will change. If there will be a red-green government in the future, it will only be with involvement of the Left party.” Merkel’s performance was compared to that of Adenauer, who was the last chancellor to secure a Bundestag majority without need of a coalition partner, in 1957. After a campaign that concentrated almost solely on Merkel’s personality and solid leadership in times of economic turmoil, but was thin on detailed policy, she came within a whisker of obtaining an absolute majority, falling just five seats short. But there are also critical voices. Die Welt asks whether Merkel will finally start pursuing reforms at home as well as abroad: “She won’t be able to dine out on [Gerhard] Schröder’s legacy for another four years”. I think her victory is positive since she can steer Germany off the eurozone crisis.
We can agree to disagree on this. It is not about Germany, it is about the EU as a whole and while Merkel can further isolate Germany it is not a good thing unless you are of course anti-EU. I think she was the lesser of two evils, but by no means a good choice and Germans will feel that over the next few years.