page_title: Angela Merkel
section_title: Eurozone crisis
hierarchical_section_title: Angela Merkel / Chancellor of Germany / Eurozone crisis
caption_attribution_description: Angela Merkel
context_page_description: Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician who has been Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2000 to 2018. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and by some commentators as the "leader of the free world".
  Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany, moving 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, briefly serving as deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government led by Lothar de Maizière. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, later becoming Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994.
context_section_description: During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the German government stepped in to assist the mortgage company Hypo Real Estate with a bailout, which was agreed on 6 October, with German banks to contribute €30 billion and the Bundesbank €20 billion to a credit line.
  On 4 October 2008, following the Irish Government's decision to guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she strongly criticised, Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that the government would guarantee private savings account deposits, after all. However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be backed by legislation. Other European governments eventually either raised the limits or promised to guarantee savings in full.
caption: Merkel at the 2012 congress of the European People's Party (EPP)
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D4", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.00", "Image DateTime": "2012:10:17 18:56:32", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 3/10, 3/5, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image ExifOffset": "6752", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "200", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "133", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "226", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6387", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:10:17 18:56:32", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:10:17 18:56:32", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "80", "EXIF SubSecTime": "50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4928", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3280", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}