Berlin
Germany’s opposition Christian Democrats nominated a former East German, Angela Merkel, to run for chancellor in September. If Merkel wins, she will be the first woman to lead Germany, as well as the first leader of a reunified Germany to have grown up in the communist east. A conservative free-marketeer, she is often compared to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Germany must “recognize that it is a competitor in a global marketplace,” she said this week. “We need to dismantle those things that are holding our economy back—bureaucracy and overregulation.” Polls already put her ahead of the incumbent, Social Democrat Gerhard Schröder—although Schröder’s unpopularity stems largely from his attempts at the very kinds of reform Merkel advocates.
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