Chancellorship of Angela Merkel

First two terms and the euro-zone debt crisis

As support for the SPD wavered, Schröder called for an early general election to be held in September 2005, and the result was a virtual stalemate. The CDU-CSU won 35.2 percent of the votes, besting the ruling SPD by just 1 percent. Both parties sought allies in an attempt to form a government, but months of negotiations proved fruitless. Eventually, the CDU-CSU and the SPD settled on a “grand coalition” government with Merkel at its head. On November 22, 2005, Merkel took office as chancellor, becoming the first woman, the first East German, and, at age 51, the youngest person to date to hold the office.

Her mandate was emphatically renewed in parliamentary elections held on September 27, 2009. The SPD posted its worst performance since 1949, and Merkel was able to form a government with her preferred partner, the classical liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). Merkel’s second term was largely characterized by her personal role in the response to the euro-zone debt crisis. Along with French Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy, Merkel championed austerity as the path to recovery for Europe’s damaged economies. Merkel’s most-visible success in that arena was the entry into force in January 2013 of a fiscal compact that bound signatory governments to operate within specific balanced-budget benchmarks.

In the September 2013 federal election, the CDU-CSU alliance won an impressive victory, capturing nearly 42 percent of the vote—just short of an absolute majority. However, because her coalition partner, the FDP, failed to reach the 5 percent threshold for representation, Merkel faced the prospect of forming a government with either the SPD or the Green Party, both of whom were likely to be reluctant partners. After more than two months of negotiations, Merkel secured an agreement with the SPD to form another grand coalition government. On December 17 she became Germany’s third three-time chancellor in the postwar era (after Konrad Adenauer and Kohl).

The migrant crisis and softening support

The struggling European economy continued to loom large as Merkel entered her third term—the prospect of a Greek exit from the euro zone was a recurring concern—but it was soon eclipsed by a pair of security challenges on the frontiers of the European Union (EU). A pro-Western protest movement in Ukraine drove pro-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych from office in February 2014, and Russia responded by forcibly annexing the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea. As pro-Russian gunmen seized territory in eastern Ukraine, Merkel joined other Western leaders in accusing Russia of directly fomenting the conflict. She spearheaded EU efforts to enact sanctions against Russia and participated in numerous multiparty discussions in an effort to restore peace to the region. Merkel was also faced with Europe’s gravest refugee crisis since World War II when hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere flocked to the EU. Although she maintained that Germany would keep its borders open in the face of the humanitarian emergency, Merkel temporarily suspended the Schengen Agreement and reintroduced border controls with Austria in September 2015.

More than one million migrants entered Germany in 2015, and Merkel’s party paid a steep political price for her stance on refugees. As the backlash against migrants manifested itself in street protests and at the ballot box, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland; AfD) was among the parties to capitalize on the rising tide of populism and xenophobia in Europe. In September 2016 the AfD placed second—ahead of the CDU—in regional elections in Merkel’s home state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Two weeks later the CDU was ousted from the local governing coalition in Berlin when it posted its worst-ever electoral performance in the capital. Elsewhere, appeals to nationalism had fueled the successful “yes” campaign in the U.K.’s Brexit referendum (June 2016) and propelled Donald Trump to victory in the U.S. presidential election (November 2016), but Merkel continued to tack toward the centre as she announced that she would seek a fourth term.

That strategy seemed to bear fruit when the CDU won bellwether regional elections in Saarland (March 2017) and the traditional SPD stronghold of North Rhine–Westphalia (May 2017). In June 2017 Merkel surprised many when she dropped her opposition to an open vote in the Bundestag on the legalization of same-sex marriage. Days later, lawmakers approved the measure, which enjoyed wide support among the German populace. Although Merkel voted against the bill, its passage removed a potential roadblock between the CDU-CSU and parties that had made marriage equality a precondition of any possible coalition agreement after the September 2017 general election.

That contest saw Merkel win her fourth term as chancellor—but not without a significant amount of uncertainty and effort. The CDU-CSU and the SPD posted their worst showings in nearly 70 years: Germany’s two largest parties combined to win just over half the vote. Minor parties capitalized on disaffection with the grand coalition, and the Greens, the FDP, and the Left all captured enough votes to earn representation in parliament. The most dramatic result, though, was for the AfD, which finished a strong third behind the SPD. Merkel pledged to engage conservative voters who had shifted their support to the AfD, and Martin Schulz of the SPD stated that his party would return to the opposition, ruling out any discussion of another grand coalition. Schulz eventually reversed himself, when, after months of negotiations, Germany remained without a government. Talks with the FDP collapsed in November, and the prospect of fresh elections loomed. Merkel clearly did not relish such a possibility, and in December the SPD voted to open discussions with the CDU-CSU about continuing the grand coalition. Those talks concluded in February 2018, with Merkel conceding the powerful finance and foreign affairs portfolios to the SPD. Schulz, who had been initially tapped to assume the post of foreign minister in the new government, faced a fierce backlash from within the SPD and was forced to step down as party leader. Final say on the coalition rested with the SPD, and five months of postelection uncertainty ended when two-thirds of SPD voters approved the proposed government in March 2018, officially securing a fourth term for Merkel.

Support for Germany’s two traditional mainstream parties continued to erode throughout 2018, and Merkel was forced to confront a challenge from her own Bavarian allies. Horst Seehofer, Merkel’s interior minister and the head of the CSU, tendered his provisional resignation in June 2018 in a battle over Merkel’s immigration policy. The split threatened to topple the German government, but Merkel once again demonstrated her mastery of compromise, and Seehofer rescinded his resignation. High-profile squabbles between the conservative sister parties did little to help the CSU on its home territory, and in October 2018 the CSU posted its worst performance in over half a century in regional elections in Bavaria. Later that month a similarly dismal CDU performance in regional elections in Hesse led Merkel to announce that she would not seek reelection as CDU leader. She also declared her intention to step down as chancellor at the end of her term in 2021.

Without Merkel at the head of the CDU-CSU ticket, the two conservative parties performed poorly in the September 2021 general election. Combined, they captured less than one-fourth of the vote, the worst-ever result for the CDU-CSU alliance. With an extension of the grand coalition effectively ruled out by the SPD, Armin Laschet, Merkel’s successor as CDU leader, made overtures to the Greens and FDP in an attempt to form a government. Olaf Scholz of the SPD could claim a much stronger mandate based on his party’s performance, however, and, as Scholz began coalition talks, it became clear that the CDU-CSU would be moving into opposition for the first time since 2005. Laschet announced that he would step down as CDU leader, and Merkel remained in office in a caretaker capacity while the SPD-led government took shape. On December 8, 2021, Scholz was sworn in as chancellor, bringing an end to Merkel’s 31-year political career. By the time she left office, Merkel had become Germany’s second longest-serving chancellor; her 16-year term was less than two weeks shorter than that of her onetime mentor, Helmut Kohl.