What Angela Merkel recalled and what she refused to admit in her memoirs
In December 2021, when Angela Merkel stepped down as Germany's chancellor after 16 years in office, many regarded her as one of the most influential politicians of the 21st century.
Now, after three years of notable silence as her political legacy unraveled, Merkel is promoting her upcoming memoirs.
It might have been better if she had remained silent, as even that seemed more persuasive.
Read more in the column by Sławomir Sierakowski, Project Syndicate journalist – Merkel without a hint of shame: What the former German chancellor revealed about Putin and her mistakes.
The author points out that Angela Merkel gave her first interview about her book to the German weekly Der Spiegel. The former chancellor defends the core political principles that helped shape Germany and Europe as we know them today.
One of these principles, notes Sławomir Sierakowski, is her policy of appeasing Russia, which aligned with the Cold War-era principle of "change through trade."
"Additionally (among actions that raised public questions), the chancellor still considers the 2015 decision for Germany to accept over a million refugees, mostly from Syria and the broader Middle East, as well as the gradual decommissioning of German nuclear power plants, to have been the right choices," writes the Project Syndicate author.
According to him, Merkel’s moral argument for providing aid and refuge to refugees in 2015 is beyond doubt.
However, the columnist thinks that the chancellor surely understood that immigration on such a scale would lead to increased support for populists not only in Germany (where it was followed by the phenomenal success of the far-right populist Alternative for Germany) but across Europe.
"So, while Merkel claimed to stand for liberal-democratic values, her policies led to an assault on them, weakening liberal democracy and ultimately reducing controlled immigration," argues Sławomir Sierakowski.
He also notes Merkel’s unwavering support for the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia (still refusing to acknowledge that agreeing to Nord Stream 2 was a mistake), which strengthened the power of a dangerous dictator whose revisionist plans for Eastern Europe were evident.
Thus, according to the Project Syndicate author, Merkel decided that cheaper gas was more important than Polish or Ukrainian security.
"But ultimately, her approach led to an energy crisis and became one of the causes of the new full-scale war on the European continent. As a result, there is now neither cheap energy nor security," Sierakowski concludes.
He recalls that as early as 2006, Radosław Sikorski, then Poland’s Minister of Defence, compared the Nord Stream project to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
"During her long tenure in power, Germany attempted to trade Eastern Europe's security for cheap energy, abandoned an existing renewable energy source, and gave populist-nationalists a strong platform for election campaigns," writes the author.
He believes Merkel made Europe less protected from both external and internal threats.
In his column, Sierakowski also highlights the weakening of Germany itself under Merkel’s leadership.
"Over 16 years in power, Merkel did nothing to push the industries Germany is proud of, chemical, pharmaceutical and automobile manufacturing, still focused on internal combustion engines, to adapt to the demands of the 21st century… And we haven't even mentioned the German army, which is the subject of mockery in the European press," the author notes.