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It’s a visit at a run. Angela Merkel rushes through New York – she rushes from the UN plenary hall to a neighboring conference room. From the German representation to the ballroom of a nearby hotel. In staccato she receives heads of state and government, attends a women’s conference, a health meeting, and a climate lunch. “Time now for action” is what New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Helen Clark called it, who now heads the development group at the UN. With Angela Merkel it sounds like this: “Signs are good, deeds are better – let us develop our energy in this sense.”
“We make it”
We can do it, says the Chancellor again and again in New York. By that she mostly means the joint climate and sustainability efforts. 17 UN goals with many sub-items. An agenda against hunger and poverty, for health, education, climate protection. But Merkel also thinks: yes, we are showing face in the refugee crisis. Many in New York ask the Chancellor how she does it in Germany. How open it is, given the suffering of the refugees. That brings her international respect, very different from the increasing number of party friends in Germany.
Many of Merkel’s meetings in New York revolve around the subject of refugees, for example with the Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu: “We have once again confirmed that we will set up a German-Turkish working group to deal with migration issues, so that we can better control refugee movements In this context, of course, Turkey’s great concern was expressed that new refugee movements from Syria could arise. “
Merkel leaves the field to her foreign minister
US President Obama and Russian President Putin are meeting today and are also talking about Syria – the Chancellor is said to have urged Obama to do so. She leaves the field to her foreign minister. Instead, Merkel is traveling back with clear instructions for the coming world climate summit in Paris in December. It must be measured by this, says Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace: “The Chancellor will only gain credibility in climate policy by organizing a climate tax in Germany in such a way that coal-fired power plants are switched off without new subsidies But now we are also working internationally to ensure that the G7 resolutions will be an international resolution with all states together. “
Merkel is refueling in the USA, despite the agitation. Even in the UN building, diplomats pull out their cell phones, wanting a selfie with the Chancellor. In Germany, Angela Merkel slipped in the opinion polls. In New York she swims on a wave of esteem and respect. Calm returns only once: when she visits Ground Zero, the memorial to the victims of the terror of September 11th. At the only tree that survived in the rubble, Merkel paused and was moved: “This tree is of course a miracle – that it survived and that it continued to grow.” Then it goes on, again at a quick pace. The Chancellor does not make that impression that she somehow scratches the falling popularity in Germany.
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