Excuse me sir, do you have a moment to talk about our savior, Angela Merkel?

Angela Merkel is a German politician best known as the first female chancellor of Germany and one of the architects of the European Union.

Angela Dorothea Kasner, better known as Angela Merkel, was born in Hamburg, West Germany, on July 17, 1954. Trained as a physicist, Merkel entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Rising to the position of chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel became Germany's first female chancellor, and one of the leading figures of the European Union, following the 2005 national elections.

While most other European leaders were finished off by the financial crisis, Merkel has blossomed during it. She adroitly fended off a long-term recession in Germany at the time the global economic crisis hit by introducing economic stimulus packages and shortening working hours, whereby workers worked less but had their earnings topped up by the government rather than business. As a result, Germany flourished in the crisis (helped also by being able to take advantage of other favourable conditions such as low interest on bonds and Germany’s strong – some would say too strong – position as an exporter). Her future challenges will be to deal with underfunded public infrastructure, a flaccid education system and a lack of qualified workers, for which Germany will need immigrants – all of which could culminate to have a disastrous effect on the economy.

In the 2005 election, Merkel narrowly defeated Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, winning by just three seats, and after the CDU agreed a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD), she was declared Germany's first female chancellor. Merkel is also the first former citizen of the German Democratic Republic to lead the reunited Germany and the first woman to lead Germany since it became a modern nation-state in 1871. She was elected to a second term in 2009.

After the Fukushima disaster, Merkel made the surprise announcement that she would shut eight of Germany’s 17 nuclear reactors and that the others would be phased out by 2022. The exit was part of a long-term transition to alternative energy sources – the so-called “Energiewende” – and won Merkel considerable support from across the spectrum and boosted Germany’s standing as a world-leader in energy reform in an effort to tackle global warming.