Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis
Alan Crawford, Tony Czuczka
Language: English
Pages: 232
ISBN: 1118641108
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Angela Merkel: A Chancellorship Forged in Crisis is the definitive new biography of the world’s most powerful woman. Delving into Merkel’s past, the authors explain the motives behind her drive to remake Europe for the age of globalization, her economic role models and the experiences under communism that color her decisions. For the first time in English, Merkel is fully placed in her European context. Through exclusive interviews with leading policy makers and Merkel confidants, the book reveals the behind-the-scenes drama of the crisis that came to dominate her chancellorship, her prickly relationship with the U.S. and admiration for Eastern Europe.
government was elected and Merkel began her second term, the bill was overdue. What came to be known as the sovereign debt crisis erupted, rippling out from Greece across the 17-country euro area. Financial markets took fright at the state of the region’s finances and started to push up the rates governments paid to borrow to unbearable levels, forcing Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus to seek international bailouts and bringing down governments across Europe as voters protested
bondholders pay. She had dropped early hints after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, criticizing market excesses and the financial industry’s resistance to tighter regulation. When her government set up a 500 billion euro rescue fund for German banks in late 2008, Merkel warned bankers that the shoe was on the other foot and they now had to “accept our conditions.”27 In mid-2009, German lawmakers passed the “debt brake,” a constitutional amendment backed by Merkel that obliges the federal and
wasn’t planning to use Twitter Inc.’s social networking service during her 2013 election campaign. She prefers text messaging by phone, an older and more private technology.40 Notes 1. As measured by GDP per capita. 2. Eurostat, “Public Balance and General Government Debt, 2008-2011”: http:// epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File: Public_balance_and_general_government_debt,_2008-2011_(1)_(%25_of_ GDP).png&filetimestamp=20121023174050. 3. German Federal Statistics
ponderous attempt in 2004 to enact a single constitution which was knocked down in referendums the following year in France and the Netherlands, and some had expressed reservations about the prospect of more treaty change becoming similarly bogged down. Cameron said he was prepared to veto any such move. Ana Palacio, the former Spanish foreign minister and Senior Vice President of the World Bank who served as a member of the European Parliament for eight years, said the entire EU was “paralyzed
Joshua (Merkel and the U.S.) Judges (German Model) Kings (Merkel’s Contemporaries) Apostles (How She Works) Proverbs (Where To?) Chronicles 1 7 23 41 59 75 95 113 131 147 163 181 Appendix - Photo credits 193 Bibliography 195 Index 199 v ftoc.indd v 28-05-2013 11:10:24 ftoc.indd vi 28-05-2013 11:10:25 Acknowledgements The idea for this book was hatched during a European Union summit in Brussels, but it was in a bar adjacent to the former U.S. Embassy building in Berlin that the