Merkel intends to stay around for next 4yrs

Angela Merkel says she intends to continue her leadership of Germany for the coming years as chancellor in an interview that aired yesterday on German television as the campaign for September’s parliamentary elections begins.“No one can say what life will bring, but I certainly intend to continue for four years,” Merkel said in response to a question concerning voters’ expectations for her being able to fulfil her vision for Germany.In the interview by broadcaster ARD, the incumbent chancellor spoke about the domestic issues of refugees and investment as well as relations with Turkey and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato). Ever moderate, the German leader was unafraid to back down on positions she believed in.Despite friction with her conservative Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), Merkel, who leads the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), rejected limiting the number of refugees that would be allowed to enter the country.“As far as an upper limit is concerned, my position is clear: I will not accept it,” she said, saying that numbers could be reduced by controls and taking action to prevent the situations that cause people to flee one country for another.While agreeing with her centre-left opponent for chancellor, Martin Schulz, on the need for investment in such things as digitalisation, Merkel claimed that the main problem was not lack of funds but the long planning process.Germany should be legally bound to invest in infrastructure, the centre-left challenger to Chancellor Angela Merkel in September elections said yesterday.Cash-rich Germany is also facing pressure from its trading partners to spend more to cut its massive trade surplus, and the issue is feeding into the looming ballot race.Berlin “must use its money to improve public infrastructure according to binding rules” Social Democratic Party (SPD) candidate Martin Schulz said at a campaign event in the German capital.Schulz did not call for the lifting of the “debt brake” built into the German constitution at Merkel’s behest in 2009, which sets legal limits on deficits in federal and regional budgets.Berlin has booked budget surpluses in recent years and reduced its debt levels under finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.Merkel insisted her conservative-led governments had “achieved a balanced budgets and massively increased investments at the same time” in an interview with ARD public television later Sunday.“We already fix [investments] in many areas in our medium-term spending plans,” she said.German public spending is a hot topic at home and abroad.Trading partners have called on the government to invest more as a way of reducing its massive trade surplus — the amount its exports outweigh its imports.Countries like France or the United States argue that while Germany is happy to rake in cash from selling its goods abroad, it fails to help other economies by spending at home to contribute to economic growth.French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published Thursday that Germany had to move on investment.And The Economist magazine labelled trade surpluses “the German problem” on its latest cover.It accused the country of saving too much and spending too little alongside an image of the imposing German eagle — its wings incorporating a graph of trade statistics.“The state can’t create any illegal deficits — and that’s right,” Schulz said yesterday.But the SPD argues that increasing investment is a matter of “intergenerational fairness”, slotting it into a 10-point programme alongside improving social justice and a stronger European Union.The plan would oblige the state to spend on high-speed internet connections, transport links, renewable energy and education, especially in the country’s economically weakest regions.Rather than increasing the amount of cash available for investment, Merkel told ARD, it was more important to speed up planning processes and reduce the number of avenues for legal challenges to construction projects.“We are unable to spend the money we have at the moment” because of such problems, Merkel complained.She reiterated a commitment to spend one-third of budget surpluses on investments in the next parliament.Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament has a formidable opponent in Merkel.She has regained a commanding lead in opinion polls after Schulz enjoyed a brief surge that took the SPD within touching distance of the Chancellor earlier this year.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday she stood by her decision to hold a G20 summit in Hamburg even after it was marred by street protests that turned violent.“Things happened that were unacceptable. I don’t shirk my responsibility,” Merkel told ARD public television.The chancellor sought to defuse a political row over the gathering, when anarchist mobs battled riot police, torched cars and looted shops even as world leaders talked trade and climate and enjoyed a Beethoven concert.Local lawmakers from her centre-right Christian Democratic Union have blamed Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz for failing to organise sufficient police protection.And others have attacked Merkel herself for her choice of Germany’s second city as the venue.“The federal government was the host,” Merkel said. “It was clear that it had to take place in a big city, and I was pleased that Olaf Scholz agreed...I’ve made it clear to the Hamburg CDU that I think they’re wrong” to criticise him.