I am not a fan of Ms. Merkel -and, even less so, of Ms. Thatcher who “topped a poll of Britain’s best post-war leaders”-, but this article is just an empty rant without any substance. Except from the defense spending, there is not a single number, no source cited that would foster the authors’ argument.
Just a few points: There is a lot of reason why you could criticize the former German chancellor, but Ms. Merke’s “call to turn off Germany’s remaining nuclear power plants” isn’t likely one of them (the mistake here wasn’t the end of nuclear power but the failure of establishing a German renewable energy industry that was thriving in the 2000s).
And Ms. Merkel was not “inviting” over a million Syrians and others to Germany in 2015. The support Germany and some other states gave to refugees then fleeing a war was the right thing at the time. I can’t say whether this sign of humanity has “helped fuel the rise of the hard right in Germany and elsewhere,” but I am firmly convinced that if Ms. Merkel’s successors in politics -in Germany and elsewhere- would show a more human stance towards our current democracies and human rights and against autocracies, voters would likely have a real alternative to “the hard right in Germany and elsewhere”. (But, in the same article, the Economist criticizes Germany for “China [having] soaked up its exports, glad to face few questions over human rights, while Germany failed to worry about getting hooked on another autocratic regime”. What, I wonder, do they say about the current transparency discussions, forced labour and other issues in Chinese supply chains?)
So I conclude that you could write a whole book on Ms. Merkel’s economic policies, and not much of it may be positive. There is a lot to criticize. But this Economist article is another topic misconduct. To me reading this was a reminder why I unsubscribed to this magazine long time ago after having been a reader for many years.
I apologize for the long post.
