Angela Merkel

Germany state institutions Conservatism and Christian democracy 1954.7.17.–

German chancellor who led the largest creditor country and insisted on austerity conditions for Greece

Born in Hamburg and raised in East Germany, Merkel worked as a research scientist with a doctorate in quantum chemistry and entered politics after the revolution of 1989. Her party, Democratic Awakening, merged with the East German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 1990, and she became CDU leader in 2000. She was Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. In the Greek crisis Germany was the Greek government's largest creditor; she is often credited with having "saved the euro" by coordinating debt relief policy, while the austerity imposed on Greece as part of her negotiating position has been criticised as overly harsh. In 2011 she and Schäuble pushed private creditors to accept a 50 percent loss.

Also known as: Angela Dorothea Merkel · Angela Kasner