BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has ruled out taking a leadership role in the European Union after serving out her term as chancellor, saying she “will not be available for any political office, no matter where, not even in Europe.”
Merkel has ceded her long-standing leadership of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and has said that she will not run for another term as chancellor when her current one runs out 2021. Speculation about her future career has been rife.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker recently said he thought it possible that Merkel would move to Brussels. “I cannot imagine that Angela Merkel will disappear into obscurity,” he told Germany’s Funke media group at the end of April.
Earlier this week, Merkel said politicians should not hang on in office “until nobody wants to see you anymore”.
In December, she handed over the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union to heir apparent Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Kramp-Karrenbauer, sometimes dubbed “mini-Merkel”, has said that she had no ambition to succeed Merkel as chancellor until 2021.
When Merkel came into office in 2005, George W Bush was US president, Jacques Chirac was in the Elysee Palace in Paris and Tony Blair was British prime minister.
— dpa/Reuters
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