Angela Merkel's legacy: has she saved or destroyed Europe?
Angela Merkel’s approach to a problem, wrote one of her biographers, is “to sit it out”. Rather than entertain grand ideas of a “historic mission” or “strategic vision”, she aims to “solve today’s problems, in a way that ensures she stays in power”.
The German chancellor, once described by Forbes as the world’s most powerful woman, managed that for 13 years. She has been measured, cautious, methodical, pragmatic, sometimes maddeningly noncommittal and seemingly always in control.
But this week, weakened by plummeting polls, an unpopular and ineffective coalition, dire performances in recent state elections and increasingly acrimonious in-fighting among her centre-right alliance, she conceded defeat.
She is, her defenders say, a fundamentally decent politician who fought for democratic values; whose civil, level-headed persona represents all that the posturing populists now challenging Europe’s unity in countries like Hungary and Italy – and the one in the White House – do not.
Others, however, are not so sure. “Much of what we think we know about Merkel is either spin or speculation, ” says Hans Kundnani, senior research fellow at Chatham House. “The extraordinary thing is, after 13 years in the chancellery we still don’t really know who she is.”
Merkel’s hard line on enforcing austerity was popular in Germany but almost certainly helped fuel support for populist movements in southern Europe, while her 2015 open borders policy – based, Kundnani believes, as much on a misreading of German opinion as on compassion – boosted the German anti-immigration party.
“We don’t yet know, ” says Kundnani, “whether Merkel will go down in history as the woman who destroyed Europe, or saved it.”
Legacy遗产（几代人遗留下来的宝贵的财产，烂摊子）
Heritage一代人留给一代人
Sit it out静观其变
Entertain an idea琢磨一个想法
Chancellor（德国或者奥地利的）总理
Measured 慢而稳的，cautious谨慎的，methodical井然有序的，pragmatic务实主义
Maddeningly Noncommittal深藏不漏到令人恼火的地步
Conced（defeat）勉强承认，认输
Coalition联合政府
Dire极其糟糕的
In-fighting内讧
Alliance联盟
Acrimonious愈演愈烈的
Fight for为什么而战
Level-headed头脑冷静的
Civil彬彬有礼的
Posturing形式主义的
Challenge v.威胁
Spin n.偏袒，带有偏袒性的代表
Hard Line强硬路线
Austerity经济紧缩
Fuel v.煽风点火，n.燃料
Go down in history载入史册