Brussels: European leaders gave German chancellor Angela Merkel gave a standing ovation on Friday at her last EU summit after a 16-year reign that helped guide the bloc through major ups and downs.
Merkel attended a staggering 107 EU summits that saw some of the biggest turning points in recent European history, including the eurozone debt crisis, an influx of Syrian refugees, Brexit and the creation of the bloc’s historic pandemic recovery fund. Is.
“You are a monument,” European Council chief Charles Michel, the summit’s host, paid tribute to him behind closed doors, according to an official in the room.
The EU summit without “Angela without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower,” Michel said.
He gave Merkel a Perspex cube with a globe he described as an “artistic impression” of the Europa building, where the EU summits are hosted.
Merkel, with a conspicuous lack of fanfare, thanked reporters for their long nights at the summit, though she still offered a cautionary tale of the challenges facing the European Union and her German successor.
“I’m leaving The European Union“As far as my responsibility to the federal chancellor is concerned, at a time where there is cause for concern,” she said.
“We have overcome many crises, but we have a series of unresolved problems,” she said, citing disputes over migration, the bloc’s economy and the rule of law in EU countries.
– ‘Agreement Machine’ – Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel called Merkel a “compromise machine” who “usually found something to unite us” through marathon intra-EU talks.
“Europe will miss him,” he said.
Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schalenberg called him “undoubtedly a great European” and “a paradise of peace, if you wish, within the European Union”.
His departure, he said, “will leave a hole”.
Her final summit, a two-day affair in Brussels, leaned once again on her soft-power skills to ease a burning row with Poland over her refusal of an EU legal order – something that is believed to be The next existential threat to the European Union may be.
Earlier in the day on Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki defended his country’s Constitutional Court’s 7 October decision, which held that EU law applies only in specific, limited areas and Polish law applies in all others. it happens.
Merkel, supported by the French President Emmanuel Macron, having spent much of its political capital negotiating with Poland, warned against a “cascade” of legal battles if the issue turned into challenges. European Court of Justice.
The message was received by the European Commission and countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium that wanted a more muscular slap of Poland, which they accuse of taking back democratic norms by removing judicial independence in national courts.
– ‘Theory on Selfishness’ – The East-West controversy has been a recurring theme throughout Merkel’s long tenure.
His mediating role reflected Germany’s status as the economic superpower of the European Union, dominated by several former Soviet-bloc countries whose membership in the union tilted the political balance away from Paris and toward Berlin.
It also spoke about Merkel’s family background of German and Polish descent, as well as her behind-the-scenes strategy when conflicting forces grew tired, before stepping in with a compromise solution.
In a surprising video posted on Twitter by Michelle of the European Union, former US President Barack Obama praised Merkel as one of those rare leaders who “put her principles above any narrow definition of selfishness”. .
“It is a testament to your character that you would probably prefer to work at a meeting of the European Council than to be the center of attention like this,” he said.
Germany, still in the process of forming a government to replace Merkel, did not contest after the September elections, in which her conservative CDU party was defeated.
Merkel attended a staggering 107 EU summits that saw some of the biggest turning points in recent European history, including the eurozone debt crisis, an influx of Syrian refugees, Brexit and the creation of the bloc’s historic pandemic recovery fund. Is.
“You are a monument,” European Council chief Charles Michel, the summit’s host, paid tribute to him behind closed doors, according to an official in the room.
The EU summit without “Angela without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower,” Michel said.
He gave Merkel a Perspex cube with a globe he described as an “artistic impression” of the Europa building, where the EU summits are hosted.
Merkel, with a conspicuous lack of fanfare, thanked reporters for their long nights at the summit, though she still offered a cautionary tale of the challenges facing the European Union and her German successor.
“I’m leaving The European Union“As far as my responsibility to the federal chancellor is concerned, at a time where there is cause for concern,” she said.
“We have overcome many crises, but we have a series of unresolved problems,” she said, citing disputes over migration, the bloc’s economy and the rule of law in EU countries.
– ‘Agreement Machine’ – Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel called Merkel a “compromise machine” who “usually found something to unite us” through marathon intra-EU talks.
“Europe will miss him,” he said.
Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schalenberg called him “undoubtedly a great European” and “a paradise of peace, if you wish, within the European Union”.
His departure, he said, “will leave a hole”.
Her final summit, a two-day affair in Brussels, leaned once again on her soft-power skills to ease a burning row with Poland over her refusal of an EU legal order – something that is believed to be The next existential threat to the European Union may be.
Earlier in the day on Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki defended his country’s Constitutional Court’s 7 October decision, which held that EU law applies only in specific, limited areas and Polish law applies in all others. it happens.
Merkel, supported by the French President Emmanuel Macron, having spent much of its political capital negotiating with Poland, warned against a “cascade” of legal battles if the issue turned into challenges. European Court of Justice.
The message was received by the European Commission and countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium that wanted a more muscular slap of Poland, which they accuse of taking back democratic norms by removing judicial independence in national courts.
– ‘Theory on Selfishness’ – The East-West controversy has been a recurring theme throughout Merkel’s long tenure.
His mediating role reflected Germany’s status as the economic superpower of the European Union, dominated by several former Soviet-bloc countries whose membership in the union tilted the political balance away from Paris and toward Berlin.
It also spoke about Merkel’s family background of German and Polish descent, as well as her behind-the-scenes strategy when conflicting forces grew tired, before stepping in with a compromise solution.
In a surprising video posted on Twitter by Michelle of the European Union, former US President Barack Obama praised Merkel as one of those rare leaders who “put her principles above any narrow definition of selfishness”. .
“It is a testament to your character that you would probably prefer to work at a meeting of the European Council than to be the center of attention like this,” he said.
Germany, still in the process of forming a government to replace Merkel, did not contest after the September elections, in which her conservative CDU party was defeated.
.