EU leaders bid farewell to Angela Merkel with a standing ovation

This Friday, the leaders of the European Union (EU) the German leader was fired from the stage Angela Merkel. With great compliments and heartfelt words, the Europeans said goodbye to Merkel, who generated influence in the policies of the Old Continent for at least 16 years.

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Merkel, who is taking part in her 107th European summit in Brussels, received a standing ovation from the other leaders, who highlighted her continental influence in her 16 years in power.

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In the short farewell ceremony, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that the EU summits “without Angela they are like Rome without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel Tower”Said a European source.

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According to the same source, Michel mentioned that “His farewell to the European scene touches us politically, but it also fills us with emotion. You are a monument”.

Already upon arriving at the headquarters of the European Council, several leaders had paid tribute to the figure of the German leader.

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“He is someone who for 16 years really marked Europe and helped us, at 27 [países del bloque], to make the right decisions with great humanity in difficult moments”Said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo.

Merkel’s exit from the scene “he will leave a great void, because he is someone who has been in office for so long and who has had a great influence on the development of the European Union “ added his Austrian counterpart, Alexander Schallenberg.

Merkel “it was a haven of peace within the EU”He insisted.

The German Chancellor is “a great policy, and it was probably a stabilizing factor that is urgently needed in very difficult situations”, Said the Prime Minister of Lithuania, Ingrida Simonyte.

The Lithuanian official expressed her “huge respect“Por Merkel.

In turn, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, pointed out that Merkel “it was a machine for making deals. When things weren’t working out, we still had Angela (…) In general, she always found something that would unite us and allow us to go further”.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had recently underlined how the analytical spirit of Merkel (of whom she was minister) had been crucial in unlocking the sometimes endless European negotiations.

Merkel’s withdrawal from the European political scene raises fears about a vacuum within the EU in the face of challenges such as post-pandemic economic reconstruction, climate change or even asserting her geopolitical role vis-à-vis the United States and China.

Merkel had been criticized for her government’s attitude during the Eurozone crisis following the global financial collapse of 2008-2009.

However, she was later hailed for her response to the migration crisis in the mid-2010s, managing Brexit, and her role in defining a common debt for the bloc as a way to deal with the pandemic.

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Deshawn