[11] She then entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokeswoman for the first democratically elected government of East Germany led by Lothar de Maizière.

[15] In foreign policy, Merkel emphasised international cooperation, both in the context of the EU and NATO, and initiating the Russian reset and strengthening of Eurasian and transatlantic economic relations.

[41] However, Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors.

[47] Although she did not participate in the crowd celebrations the night the wall came down, one month later Merkel became involved in the growing democracy movement, joining the new party Democratic Beginning (Demokratischer Aufbruch, abbreviated to DA).

In a private negotiation that came to be known as the Wolfratshausen Breakfast, [de ] Merkel agreed to cede the opportunity to challenge Schröder to Stoiber; in exchange, she was to become leader of the CDU/CSU faction in the Bundestag following the election.

She advocated German labour law changes, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week.

[79] She regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance.

[78] Merkel and the CDU lost ground after Kirchhof proposed the introduction of a flat tax in Germany, again undermining the party's broad appeal on economic affairs.

[111] Following increased debate on the subject in the summer of 2010,[112] the German government announced plans to abolish conscription in Germany, making the Bundeswehr a volunteer military, in November 2010.

[140] Meanwhile, Yasmin Fahimi, secretary-general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner of the ruling coalition, praised Merkel's policy allowing migrants in Hungary to enter Germany as "a strong signal of humanity to show that Europe's values are valid also in difficult times".

[183] In late February 2020, referring to this crisis team, Merkel recommended an approach characterised by moderation and an avoidance of extreme or universal measures (Maß und Mitte).

[195] On 29 October 2018, Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of CDU at their party conference in December 2018, but intended to remain as chancellor until the 2021 German federal election was held.

[200] Kramp-Karrenbauer's elevation to Defence Minister after Ursula von der Leyen's departure to become president of the European Commission also boosted her standing as Merkel's most likely candidate for succession.

[201] In 2019, media outlets speculated that Kramp-Karrenbauer might take over Merkel's position as Chancellor sooner than planned if the current governing coalition proved unsustainable.

"[211] In April that year, a spokesperson for Merkel stated that she "stood by her position at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008," when she had opposed Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance, a decision that had come under increased scrutiny.

[211] On 1 June 2022, Merkel made her first semi-public comments about political affairs since leaving office, at a retirement party for Reiner Hoffmann [de ], the president of the German Trade Union Confederation.

In an interview with journalist Alexander Osang [de ], she defended her past decisions on Ukraine and called Putin's aggression,[212] not just unacceptable, but also a major mistake from Russia...

[220] Merkel is in favour of a "mandatory solidarity mechanism" for relocation of asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece to other EU member states as part of the long-term solution to Europe's migrant crisis.

[234] ... She produces graphs of unit labour costs ... at EU meetings in much the same way that the late Margaret Thatcher used to pull passages from Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom from her handbag.

[250] Although described as a "new beginning for Germany's climate policy" by then-minister of the environment Svenja Schulze,[251] the package was widely criticised; environmental protection groups have labelled it insufficient, and opposition parties have argued that it is ineffective.

[262] Merkel has been criticised for being personally present and involved at the M100 Media Award handover[263] to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who had triggered the Muhammad cartoons controversy.

This happened at a time of fierce debate over a book by the former Deutsche Bundesbank executive and finance senator of Berlin Thilo Sarrazin, which was critical of Muslim immigration.

"[270] The term alternativlos (German for "without an alternative"), which was frequently used by Angela Merkel to describe her measures addressing the European sovereign-debt crisis, was named the Un-word of the Year 2010 by a jury of linguistic scholars.

As such, Merkel was reportedly furious when her Foreign Minister Heiko Maas received Hong Kong dissident Joshua Wong in Berlin in September [2019], a move that Beijing publicly protested.

[282][283] Critics blamed the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and closure of nuclear plants for contributing to the 2021–2022 global energy crisis.

[290] Merkel's chancellorship has become tightly associated with the policy of Wandel durch Handel, which advocates pursuing close economic ties with authoritarian governments with the goal of inducing democratization.

[297] Following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2016, Merkel was described by The New York Times as "the Liberal West's Last Defender",[298] and as the "leader of the free world" by a number of commentators, including Hillary Clinton.

[312][313] Al Jazeera has criticised the "Iron Lady" nickname for Merkel as "wrong-headed", noting her pro-European stance, her efforts to combat "profit-seeking speculators" during the euro crisis, and her lacking Thatcher's "my-way-or-the-highway" attitude towards politics.

A character named Merkel, accompanied by a sidekick called Schäuble, also appears as the sinister female henchman in Michael Paraskos's novel In Search of Sixpence.

[352] It is based on the bestselling novels by German writer David Safier and is a comedy that was a hit in Germany and then shown on public broadcaster RAI, dubbed into Italian.