Europe

1464 readers

623 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism.
Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in [email protected]. (They're cool, you should subscribe there too!)
Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)

(This list may get expanded when necessary.)

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the mods: @[email protected], @[email protected], or @[email protected].

founded 4 months ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Angela who? Merkel’s legacy looks increasingly terrible (www.economist.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago

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.