Angela Dorothea Merkel is a German politician serving as the chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018. A member of the Christian Democratic Union, Merkel is the first female chancellor of Germany. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world and by many commentators since 2016 as the “leader of the free world”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the country’s second-longest-serving chancellor as she reached the 5,143-day mark. That number of days matches that of Germany’s first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, who led Germany from 1949-1963 under the same party as Merkel, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Merkel, who Time Magazine once dubbed the “Chancellor of the Free World”, and who topped the Forbes list of the “World’s Most Powerful Women” in 2018, has served as federal chancellor since November 22, 2005. Along the way, she played a central role in tackling the European and global financial crisis in 2007-2008 and has helped implement major reforms and policies on healthcare, energy management and migration.
Her Forbes profile describes some of her achievements as pushing through a later retirement age, putting more women in senior government posts and raising payments to new parents.
Merkel earned her PhD. in quantum chemistry in 1986 in the former East Germany at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin, and has received 17 honorary degrees throughout her time in office, from universities including Harvard and Leipzig University. She has also received foreign honors from several countries including the United States, Saudi Arabia, Austria and Israel.
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