{"id":481792,"date":"2025-10-08T02:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481792\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T02:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:22:10","slug":"angela-merkels-non-apology-tour-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/481792\/","title":{"rendered":"Angela Merkel\u2019s non-apology tour \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>But it appears to be too difficult for Merkel \u2014 once lauded as the \u201cchancellor of the free world\u201d when Time Magazine named her \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Person of the Year<\/a>\u201d in 2015 \u2014 to accept that history may end up judging her far more critically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe we really have a growing problem here with Merkel\u2019s loss of touch with reality, as I would describe it, and her attempt to influence her own history, her own role in history,\u201d said Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations. \u201cIn my opinion, this makes her untrustworthy. She is discrediting herself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While current Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pivoted from his country\u2019s past policies and led much of the European effort to aid Ukraine, Merkel\u2019s unwillingness to face up to Germany\u2019s mistakes has helped prevent a broader national reappraisal of the country\u2019s role in the lead-up to the war, according to Meister.<\/p>\n<p>Inside Germany \u2014\u00a0and in particular in the former East Germany, where Merkel was raised \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/vladimir-putin-win-eastern-germany-sahra-wagenknecht-alliance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">there remains considerable sympathy for Putin<\/a>. Parties like the far-right Alternative for Germany, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/europe-poll-of-polls\/germany\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">currently leading in many polls<\/a>, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-superstar-sahra-wagenknecht-far-left-far-right\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">populist-left Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht<\/a> take a far more conciliatory approach to Moscow. Some Russia-friendly forces in Germany are seizing on Merkel\u2019s interview to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Amira_M_Ali\/status\/1975174030589091929?s=19\" target=\"_blank\">blame NATO for sabotaging peace efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But even in Russia, some mocked Merkel\u2019s assertion that more talks, by 2021, could have changed Putin\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone reasonably informed has long known that the disagreements between Russia and the West at that moment were already too deep,\u201d Alexei Chesnakov, a former adviser to the Kremlin, wrote in an online post.<\/p>\n<p>Eva Hartog, Nette N\u00f6stlinger and Veronika Melkozerova contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But it appears to be too difficult for Merkel \u2014 once lauded as the \u201cchancellor of the free&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[13402,34,2000,299,30557,1824,660,2821,92298,332,1201,657,333,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-481792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-angela-merkel","9":"tag-emmanuel-macron","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-frank-walter-steinmeier","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-kremlin","15":"tag-nato","16":"tag-nord-stream-2","17":"tag-russia","18":"tag-trade","19":"tag-ukraine","20":"tag-vladimir-putin","21":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115336166924039073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}