• Print
• E-Mail
• Feedback

12/31/2009

In her year-end address to the nation on Wednesday night, German Chancellor Angela Merkel trod a fine and typically rational line between optimism and pessisim for the coming year, warning Germans that economic issues had not been resolved but also that there was plenty of hope for the future.

Merkel warned Germany's citizens to prepare for difficult times ahead. "I tell you very openly: We cannot expect that the economic crisis will be over quickly," the chancellor said. "Some things will get more difficult in the new year before they can get better." However she added that there is well-founded hope "that Germany will master this crisis and that our country will be stronger going out of it than it was coming in, And that a crisis like this will never be repeated."

She said that 2010 would be a decisive year in bringing the global economy under control. "The past year was marked by the greatest global economic crisis of our time," Merkel said. "2010 will also determine how we get out of the crisis."

The chancellor said the German government would continue in its fight for new international rules on financial markets to "prevent the confluence of excess and irresponsibility in time, in the future." In the coming months, though, Merkel warned that politicians and business leaders must work together to secure jobs. She said her government would also work together with business leaders and banks to ensure that a credit crunch does not become a threat to the small and medium-sized businesses which are the motor of the German economy. "The German government," she said, "must -- and will -- do all it can to stimulate economic growth."

The chancellor also said it was essential for Germans to take steps to rein in the national budget so that future generations would not be burdened with a crippling financial mess. The German federal government is only forecasting 1.2 percent growth for 2010. And, as a result of the global economic crisis, the German government plans to borrow €86 billion ($132 billion) in 2010. The country will then be required to save €60 billion between 2011 and 2016 in order to bring the budget back in line with the EU's deficit requirements.

'Business and the Environment Are Not Mutually Exclusive'

Merkel also spoke of the year's other major subject: the environment. She warned that despite the financial crisis, issues like environmental protection should not be placed on the backburner. "Business and the environment are not mutually exclusive -- they depend on one another more than ever before," the chancellor said. "That's why we cannot allow ourselves to be deterred by setbacks like the climate conference in Copenhagen." Germany, she said, would not be discouraged and would do even better than the CO2 reduction targets currently agreed upon by the European Union as well as setting aside funds to help developing lands with climate protection.

In her address, Merkel also expressed her appreciation for the work being done abroad by German civilians, police and soldiers abroad -- especially in Afghanistan, where 4,500 Bundeswehr armed forces troops are deployed. "The federal government knows about the hardships and the dangers their duties entail," she said, adding that the most important job there is to ensure that Afghanistan "never again represents a danger to our security and well-being." At the same time, she noted, conditions must be created so that "over the next few years, responsibility can be handed onto the Afghans, step by step." Merkel said that this would be a major issue at the upcoming Afghanistan conference in London on Jan. 28.

Changing the Way We Live and Do Business

Merkel also celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in her address. "Without the fall of the Wall, my life, like the lives of all of the citizens of East Germany, would have been completely different," she said. But the task of reunification, she argued, is not yet complete and many challenges remain. Merkel called on Germans to use the power of the freedom they had won back then, to give the country "the courage to face the next year and the next decades."

The chancellor said that 2010 marked the beginning of "a new decade that will be decisive in many aspects for our country." Among them are such issues as: "How we can preserve human rights and justice in a world that cannot seem to completely banish injustice, violence and war." The next decade would determine "how we maintain our prosperity while changing the way we live and do business," Merkel said, before wishing her fellow Germans health and happiness for the new year.