Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted that her policies have failed. Events such as the financial crisis or the refugee crisis prevented her from tackling other matters with more energy, she said Saturday evening. She cited climate protection as an example.
Angela Merkel (CDU) attended an event at the Leipziger Buchmesse on Saturday evening, where she was greeted with long applause. In an interview with the editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine “Die Zeit”, Giovanni di Lorenzo, the former chancellor reflected, among other things, on controversial decisions she took between 2005 and 2021. “I had to deal with political situations that led to differences of opinion in Germany,” said the 68-year-old. But her politics have nothing to do with the AfD’s election results.
In general, Merkel has no sympathy for people who violate democratic principles, she clarified. Those who do not share these values should be brought back. Regarding her own politics in Germany, the former chancellor admitted that she had shortcomings in climate protection and promotion of women at the event: the number of women in her party shows that they had not been sufficiently promoted in the past. According to Merkel, she has not changed, but is now used to calling herself a physicist. “In the GDR I was a physicist. I was a qualified physicist, that was on my diploma,’ she explained.
Energy policy decisions defended
On the other hand, the former chancellor defended her energy policy decisions, which made Germany dependent on Russian gas. “I prefer to import gas from the UK and Norway, as we used to do, and the Netherlands. But they were no longer available. The question for us was: more expensive LNG – a third more expensive – or cheaper Russian gas.” LNG is liquefied gas.
Merkel also looks back in a book on her 16 years as chancellor, controversial decisions and her youth. She is working on the work, which will be out in fall 2024, with her longtime office manager, Beate Baumann.
Source: Krone
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