There’s something about Merkel

Once criticised for looking old-fashioned and lacking charisma, Forbes magazine has now voted her the World’s most powerful woman for four years running.

And if you look at the resume of German Chancellor (Prime Minister) Angela Merkel you’ll see why. She has steered her country out of recession and presides over Europe’s largest economy.

The only female leader in the G8 group of major industrialised countries (meeting this Friday), she’s earned the reputation as an effective negotiator on the international stage and refined a ‘mother of the nation’ image at home.

So how did it all begin for Ms Merkel?

She grew up in a rural area just outside Berlin in communist East Germany. Studying science at university and becoming a chemist, Merkel didn’t enter politics until she was 36 when she became involved in the democratic movement in 1989.

It was a relatively swift rise through the ranks: after the fall of the Berlin Wall she got a job as a spokeswoman for East Germany’s caretaker government following the first democratic elections.

She joined the CDU party – Christian Democratic Union – in 1990 and within a few months was Minister of Women and Youth.

Establishing herself firmly in the party, she was chosen to lead it ten years later – a role traditionally taken by Catholic West German men (Merkel is an Anglican).

As party leader, Merkel was an outspoken reformist. She campaigned for changes to Germany's social and economic system – specifically the removal of barriers to lay off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week to make the economy more competitive.

She was considered to be more right-wing than the traditional CDU ideology. In 2003, she was criticised when she came out in favour of the war in Iraq citing the importance of a strong German -American friendship.

Her bold policies paid off. In 2005 she was elected the first female Chancellor of Germany. However, she won by a wafer thin majority forcing her to build a ‘grand coalition’ with her main rival the Social Democrat Party.

The way she ran this coalition and the middle ground she took on many issues caused her popularity within Germany to grow.

In addition to being German's first female leader, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first with a background in natural sciences (her predecessors were either military officers or studied law and business).

The way she ran the grand coalition and the middle ground she took on many issues caused her popularity within Germany to grow. Most notably, German unemployment shrank from nearly 12% in 2006 to 7% a year later.

As a result, in the elections of September 2009 her party won a clearer majority allowing her to form a coalition with parties more closely aligned with her policies.

Since then, Merkel has had to steer her country out of recession and has just unveiled plans to cut government spending by around €80 billion (US$96 billion) to ease the budget deficit.

Despite the spending cuts, she has largely remained popular at home, as has her international appeal.

In 2007 Merkel was celebrated politically as 'Miss World' after chairing the G8 summit and making inroads on climate change.

And as EU president that same year, she brokered the deal for the new Lisbon Treaty to replace the out-of-date EU constitution.

Indeed, she has become increasingly comfortable with using her clout. After playing that central role in the Treaty, Merkel is now guiding the EU and specifically euro-zone countries through the Greek, and now European debt crisis.

German taxpayers have forked out the most money to rescue their reckless neighbours, and this has been difficult for Merkel who risks a backlash at home on the one hand, or a plummeting European currency and economy on the other.

To avoid such a situation in the future she is now leading calls for changes to the Lisbon Treaty rules to allow EU government to be rewarded and punished for good and bad economic management.

At the March summit in Brussels she adamantly stated “the EU must stay dynamic and not put up with something that isn’t good enough instead of doing something about it.”

Europe is certainly better off for having Angela Merkel around. And if she can negotiate the continent through this current crisis, the popularity of the world’s most powerful woman will become greater than ever.

By Charlotte Whale