Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (pictured) is stressing as she awaits Donald Trump’s inauguration that the world’s problems need solving in cooperation, rather than by each country individually.
Asked at a news conference yesterday about protectionist tendencies in the US, Merkel said she will seek a dialogue with the new president.
“I don’t want to get ahead of that, but I am very much convinced that we as partners benefit more if we act together than if everyone solves problems for themselves, and that is a constant fundamental attitude on my part,” she said.
Underlining importance of the Group of 20 industrial powers, which Germany chairs this year, she said the international response to financial crisis “was not a response based on isolation, but a response based on cooperation, on common rules for regulating financial markets, and I think that is the promising path.”
Merkel has made clear that she’s unhappy about possible demise of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement as a result of Trump’s desire to withdraw the US. Trump has criticised Merkel’s decision to allow large numbers of migrants into Germany.
Merkel said there are contacts “at adviser level” with Trump’s team, though there was no immediate word on any plans for a meeting beyond summits of the Group of Seven and G-20 in May and July respectively. Merkel will host the latter summit in Hamburg.
“We’ll wait for inauguration and then we will talk about this,” she said at a news conference.
Merkel is seeking a fourth term. Leaders of her conservative Christian Democratic Union met Friday and yesterday in Perl, in western Saarland state, to kick off election year — which also features three state elections, the first in Saarland in March.
Merkel has said she expects her most difficult election yet, though she was confident yesterday that a simmering dispute with her allies the Christian Social Union, won’t get in the way of a joint conservative campaign.
The CSU has demanded for the past year an annual cap of 200,000 on number of refugees Germany accepts, an idea Merkel rejects. Germany saw 890,000 asylum-seekers arrive in 2015 and 280,000 last year.
Merkel said leaders of her party agreed “that we can live with such a disagreement.”
She renewed her pledge of improved security following last month’s deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market. “We are making clear that every person has a right to security, and only those who are secure can live in freedom,” she said. Germany’s 16 states must have same security standards, Merkel said, arguing it’s not sensible for regions to have different rules on matters such as video surveillance.
