Dan O’Brien: Merkel’s successor may face existential challenges to the EU
Whatever the outcome of today’s election in Germany, it will matter a lot for Ireland’s spending and tax plans and could reopen the gap between between the ‘frugal’ northern countries and
When Angela Merkel became chancellor in November 2005, she took over a country that was very different from the Germany of today. Then, the country at the continent’s core was still referred to as the sick man of Europe.
Germans had endured a dismal decade of sluggish economic growth and high unemployment following the post-unification boom in the early 1990s. Though hard even to conceive now, the German economic motor was at that time only ...