The women who ruled in our life Time : Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel

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"Merkel" redirects here. For other uses, see Merkel (disambiguation).

Angela Merkel
Chancellor of Germany
Incumbent
Assumed office 22 November 2005
President	Horst Köhler Christian Wulff Joachim Gauck Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Vice Chancellor	Franz Müntefering Frank-Walter Steinmeier Guido Westerwelle Philipp Rösler Sigmar Gabriel Olaf Scholz
Preceded by	Gerhard Schröder
Leader of the Christian Democratic Union
Incumbent
Assumed office 10 April 2000
General Secretary	Ruprecht Polenz Laurenz Meyer Ronald Pofalla Hermann Gröhe Peter Tauber Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
Deputy	Volker Bouffier Ursula von der Leyen Julia Klöckner Armin Laschet Thomas Strobl
Preceded by	Wolfgang Schäuble
Leader of the CDU/CSU Group in the Bundestag
In office 22 September 2002 – 21 November 2005
First Deputy	Michael Glos
Preceded by	Friedrich Merz
Succeeded by	Volker Kauder
General Secretary of the Christian Democratic Union
In office 7 November 1998 – 10 April 2000
Leader	Wolfgang Schäuble
Preceded by	Peter Hintze
Succeeded by	Ruprecht Polenz
Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
In office 17 November 1994 – 26 October 1998
Chancellor	Helmut Kohl
Preceded by	Klaus Töpfer
Succeeded by	Jürgen Trittin
Minister for Women and Youth
In office 18 January 1991 – 17 November 1994
Chancellor	Helmut Kohl
Preceded by	Ursula Lehr
Succeeded by	Claudia Nolte
Member of the Bundestag
Incumbent
Assumed office 22 September 2013
Constituency	Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I
In office 18 January 1991 – 22 September 2013
Constituency	Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen
Personal details
Born	Angela Dorothea Kasner (1954-07-17) 17 July 1954 (age 64) Hamburg, West Germany (now Germany)
Political party	Democratic Awakening (1989–1990) Christian Democratic Union (1990–present)
Spouse(s)	Ulrich Merkel (m. 1977; div. 1982) Joachim Sauer (m. 1998)
Alma mater	Leipzig University

Angela Dorothea Merkel (/ˈmɜːrkəl/; German: [aŋˈɡeːla ˈmɛʁkl̩];^[a] née Kasner, born 17 July 1954) is a German politician serving as Chancellor of Germany since 2005 and leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000.^[7] Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and the leader of the Free World.
Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany and moved to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989. Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, and briefly served as a deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government headed by Lothar de Maizière in 1990. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and has been reelected ever since. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as the Federal Minister for Women and Youth in Kohl's government in 1991, and became the Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After her party lost the federal election in 1998, Merkel was elected Secretary-General of the CDU before becoming the party's first female leader two years later in the aftermath of a donations scandal that toppled Wolfgang Schäuble.
Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was appointed Germany's first female chancellor at the head of a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP).^[8] At the 2013 federal election, Merkel's CDU won a landslide victory with 41.5% of the vote and formed a second grand coalition with the SPD, after the FDP lost all of its representation in the Bundestag.^[9] In the 2017 federal election the CDU again became the largest party, and she was reelected to her fourth term on 14 March 2018.^[10]
In 2007, Merkel was President of the European Council and played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. One of Merkel's consistent priorities has been to strengthen transatlantic economic relations. Merkel played a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and she has been referred to as "the decider." In domestic policy, health care reform, problems concerning future energy development and more recently her government's approach to the ongoing migrant crisis have been major issues during her Chancellorship.^[11] On 26 March 2014, Merkel became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union and she is currently the senior G7 leader.

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