How Germany fared under Angela Merkel

Germany’s economy has grown by 34% since the start of Merkel’s tenure — 15 percentage points more than its nearest EU rival, France.

In addition to sound stewardship, some of this was thanks to good fortune: Under Merkel's rule, Germany has benefitted from strong demand in fast-growing economies like China for its high-end engineering goods.

Reforms made by her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, to reduce taxes, merge unemployment and welfare benefits and increase the flexibility of the labor market also paid dividends.

Under Merkel, Germany increased its exports even as China and the United States dominated the global market.

However, Merkel's governments have grown wary of increased investment in critical sectors by Chinese state-owned enterprises. In response, they tightened rules to protect domestic firms from unwanted takeovers by investors from non-European Union countries.

Unwilling to use force to stop a torrent of refugees heading for Germany, and determined to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, Merkel decided to keep the country’s borders open.

Many view this as perplexing after her declaration back in 2010 that multiculturalism in Germany had been an abject failure. But by 2015, Germany was in a strong enough economic position to welcome the refugees and Merkel had the political capital to make it happen, telling the country: "We can do this!"

From 2005 to 2019, Germany’s non-migrant population under the age of 50 decreased. But Merkel’s tenure saw through a population boost from the migrant population across all age groups.

Merkel is regularly ranked Germany’s most popular politician. In August 2021, Merkel’s approval was highest among older Baby Boomers (57%), followed by Gen Xers (53%).

Since tracking began in 2019, Baby Boomers consistently have the highest approval rating for Merkel, but amid the first months of the pandemic (December 2020 to April 2021), Gen Z’s approval tied and briefly pulled ahead of the older generation, although their support later waned, data from Morning Consult shows.

Income inequality divides the East and the West.

After cash injections of 2 trillion euros ($2.36 trillion) over three decades, the East’s economic output per capita is still three quarters of western German levels. Merkel's government has encouraged high-tech hubs in the eastern cities of Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, Dresden and Jena.

The unemployment rate in the east reached a new record low in 2018, falling to 6.9%. However, this figure was still much higher than the 4.8% recorded in the west.

Germany still gets more than three-quarters of its energy from fossil fuels.

Merkel's government has spurred a shift toward renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power with planned exits from nuclear power by 2022 and coal-fueled power sources by 2038. However, critics including the opposition Greens say it is moving too slowly to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality.

Merkel has also enabled construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to bring Russian gas to Germany.

At secondary level, German schools failed to make progress on Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, an OECD study which assesses the reading, mathematics and scientific skills of 15-year-olds around the world.

German students on average remained steady or declining from 2006 to 2018. Math and science scores followed the downward trend of the OECD average, although German reading scores saw a slight uptick.