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BRUSSELS: Angela Merkel remains to be Germany’s Chancellor, and is likely to be nonetheless when European Union leaders meet once more, but they gave her a giant farewell occasion at Friday’s EU summit. Even Barack Obama made a cameo video look.
Attending her 107th summit, Merkel was feted by good friend and foe alike in an off-the-cuff ceremony behind closed doorways early Friday, the place they known as her something from a “compromise machine” to the EU’s Eiffel Tower.
Merkel has been the embodiment of the drive for a stronger united Europe for years since she attended her first assembly of EU leaders 16 years in the past, at a time when Jacques Chirac was nonetheless the French president and Tony Blair the British prime minister.
“You’re a monument,” stated EU Council President Charles Michel, including {that a} summit assembly with out her will likely be like “Rome with out the Vatican or Paris with out the Eiffel Tower.”
Former U.S. president Obama was equally gushing. “So many individuals, ladies and boys, women and men, have had a task mannequin who they may look as much as by means of difficult instances,” he stated. “I do know as a result of I’m one among them.”
“Danke schön,” he added.
Merkel, usually utilizing the clout of juggernaut Germany to the fullest, at all times sought to maintain the EU as tightly knit as doable but in addition defended nationwide pursuits with equal fervor, particularly in the course of the monetary disaster which noticed her conflict usually with struggling Greece.
In the long run, although, she embodied what the EU summit itself all too usually is. “Frau Merkel was a compromise machine,” stated Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
So, many will likely be unhappy to see her go. “Your spirit and expertise will stay with us,” stated Michel. “You aren’t leaving us.”
Michel might nonetheless be proper. Merkel didn’t put herself up for re-election in final month’s German polls and her CDU/CSU Christian Democrats fared so badly that they may doubtless find yourself in opposition.
The left-leaning SPD, Greens and free-market FDP introduced that they need to get their coalition authorities in place within the week beginning Dec. 6.
Till then, Merkel stays chancellor in a caretaker capability, and only some days’ delay might properly see her come again to Brussels for the mid-December summit.
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