Angela Merkel is right: Something has come upon us, all over the world, in this breathless year 2020, something that no one expected. In her last New Year’s address, the Chancellor did not even bother to talk about anything other than the pandemic. At the end she loses a few words about climate protection and the need to continue to ensure the same living conditions in Germany. But otherwise, your topic is Corona – and above all what the virus does to people.
Once again Merkel invokes the common sense
Merkel is often accused of dealing with major problems too soberly and analytically. But early this year the Chancellor pointed out what, in her opinion, is the most important thing that the country and society needs now: cohesion, insight into measures, restrictions, impositions that did not exist before. Merkel is now promoting precisely this cohesion. Just at that point in time when people are tired of all the horror reports, when they are unnerved or stunned when they notice the chaos surrounding the start of the vaccination in Germany. So it is sorely necessary to pay tribute again to the feat that Germany will have to make in 2020 and will continue to do in 2021.
The human being in the center
Merkel asks to stop and mourn the dead. It marks the minority who deny the existence of the virus with clear words: it is untrue and dangerous, cynical and cruel towards the victims. It pays tribute to doctors, nurses, bus drivers, supermarket employees, police officers and soldiers, the employees in the health departments. She mentioned that
DW’s capital correspondent Jens Thurau
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Cultural workers and traders who fear for their jobs. And for a very short time she insists on pointing out the second major political struggle, which until a year ago was centrally linked to her chancellorship: the question of how much immigration the country can handle, how many refugees. Merkel mentions the German company Biontech, in which the corona vaccine, which is now used worldwide, was developed. A company in which people from 60 nations work together. According to Merkel, nothing could better show that it is the power of diversity that brings progress. That sounds almost like a legacy.
No apologies for mistakes
Anyone who expected the Chancellor to apologize for some serious mistakes in coping with the pandemic, especially in the last three months, will be disappointed. The Chancellor speaks of constant learning throughout the year, and that’s it. Conversely, it refuses to blame the prime ministers of some countries, who impatiently insisted on an end to the spring restrictions in the summer. And she beneficially dispenses with the kind of public abuse that she afforded herself in December: When Merkel also sounded like every mulled wine drunk on the streets was an attack on the health of others.
Merkel considers the dispute over the vaccination sequence to be a waste of time
At the end, Merkel touched on the heated debate about the question of the order in which vaccinations should be given with a short sentence that is typical for her: “I will also be vaccinated when it is my turn.” I mean: The dispute about the order is as unnecessary as a goiter.
Without Corona, the Chancellor, who has been in office for 15 years, might have used this New Year’s address to look back on the era associated with her name. But that would be inappropriate now. Merkel’s chancellorship is now under the heading of whether the country, whether society will manage to fight the pandemic in such a way that the country can then continue successfully. It is not yet clear whether this will succeed. Merkel knows that. So no time to draw a conclusion.
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