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After Angela

Tom Nuttall: Berlin bureau chief, The Economist, BERLIN

Who will become Germany’s next chancellor?

Auf Wiedersehen

The prospect of life after Merkel will prove unsettling to many Germans

20201 in brief

A new law comes into force in Germany banning the sale from July of disposable plastic
products such as straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are polluting the world’s oceans

GERMANY’S LEADERS have a habit of longevity. Konrad Adenauer ran West Germany
for 14 years, Helmut Kohl for 16. Angela Merkel, who took office in November 2005 and
will stand down after the federal election in the autumn of 2021, could outlast them all
(overtaking Kohl if coalition talks run until mid-December). Over four terms as
chancellor, three of them running a “grand” coalition of centre-left and-right, Mrs
Merkel embodied the virtues of competent centrism and emerged as Europe’s crisis-
manager-in-chief. But those same qualities have had a tranquillising effect on German
politics. The prospect of life after Merkel will prove unsettling to many Germans.