Germany, Angela Merkel | featured news

A collapse of the euro could derail America’s fragile recovery and doom Mr. Obama’s re-election hopes. He may be running out of time to sway the German chancellor.

Calls for Europe to take drastic steps to quell its economic crisis grew earsplitting this week, but the pleas had an intended audience of one: German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Seven decades after a war sparked by Germany brought Europe to ruin, the country’s neighbors see it as their only hope. Germany alone has the deep pockets to help struggling countries escape a worsening economic crisis that threatens to tear the region apart.

The German parliament approved a second, euro130 billion ($173 billion) loan package for Greece on Monday after Chancellor Angela Merkel warned lawmakers that it would be irresponsible to abandon the country to bankruptcy.

Germany and France clashed on Wednesday over whether the ECB should take bolder steps to stem the euro zone debt crisis, with Chancellor Angela Merkel issuing one of her starkest warnings yet against fiddling with the central bank's strict inflation-fighting mandate.

The leaders of Germany and France, the eurozone's two biggest economies, say they have reached agreement on strengthening Europe's shaky banking sector.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought Tuesday to calm market fears that Greece is heading for a chaotic default as Europe struggles to contain a crippling financial crisis. Merkel rejected the notion that a Greek bankruptcy — a possibility raised a day earlier by her deputy that spooked markets — would provide a quick solution to the eurozone debt crisis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats have suffered a loss in elections in her home state, exit polls suggest.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that Europe's debt crisis must be contained.

What a bone-headed move. There’s nothing wrong with the 7 nuclear plants that German Chancellor Angela Merkel decreed would be shut down. Just last fall Germany decided to extend the lives of these plants, which provide roughly 10% of Germany’s electricity. With solar and wind entirely unscalable, how’s Germany going to make up the electric deficit? Either by ramping up the use of fossil-fuel burning plants (and importing more natural gas from Russia) or importing power from its neighbors–like nuke-friendly France.

Bundesbank chief Axel Weber will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday to discuss his future after the leaked disclosure of his withdrawal from the ECB presidency race hit markets and put her under fire.