Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honored yesterday with the country’s highest award, the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, which was awarded to her by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, despite voices criticizing her legacy, especially the relationship with Russia. Merkel, 68, chancellor from 2005 to 2021, received the Special Class Grand Cross at a ceremony at Bellevue Palace. This high distinction had only been conferred twice so far, to former chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, both Christian Democrats like Merkel.
“You should be honored for your extraordinarily long term and for your extraordinary political life, during which you used the experience of dictatorship to strengthen democracy,” Steinmeier said in his speech. The Head of State – who was the one who decided to award her the decoration – praised Merkel’s leadership style, “oblivious to vanities”, discreet and in search of consensus, and appreciated that, thanks to her, “the fact that power can be exercised by a woman will remain forever as something normal in our countryâ€. She appreciated the honor and did not make any political comments. “I want to thank my husband, I think his passion for science has helped him,†she said, looking at Joachim Sauer.
Angela Merkel, very popular and esteemed in her country during most of her four terms in power, saw her aura fade after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, when she had been retired for a few months. She is now being blamed for her policy towards Russian President Vladimir Putin, and for having endorsed the Nord Stream gas pipelines, a project initiated by her predecessor in the Foreign Ministry, the Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder. The war in Ukraine exposed Germany’s energy dependence on Russian gas, which had to be hastily corrected by the current coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals under Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“At the end of his term, our country was not in a good shape,” Liberal MP Bijan Djir-Sarai told the RND media group. Merkel has also been criticized – especially by her party, the Christian Democrat CDU – for her 2011 decision to abandon nuclear power, which the current government completed on Saturday by shutting down the last three active plants.
His co-religionists also reproach him for opening borders to thousands of refugees from Syria and Iraq in 2015. Merkel had “great merits, particularly at the international level, but she also made mistakes, some flagrant ones,” Carsten Linnemann, vice president of the CDU told NTV, referring to the nuclear blackout and the opening of borders.
Still, Angela Merkel, who is writing her memoirs, continues to receive praise, even from her social democrat and environmental rivals.
