Speculation grows over Merkel’s re-election plans in Germany

But, according to the article, the president remains optimistic about the future of the country he’s led for eight years.

The idea that the former home of militarism and nationalism could become a beacon for human rights and peaceful global cooperation within one lifetime may seem far-fetched.

During her reign, she has taken centre stage in Europe’s debt turmoil and refugee crisis, sparred with Russian Federation over Ukraine and now, after Donald Trump’s election, is being widely hailed as the torch-bearer of western liberal democracy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised on Saturday to increase investment in infrastructure in Europe´s biggest economy in 2017, an election year, without resorting to new borrowing.

Even if the 2015 influx of nearly 900,000 migrants spelt Merkel’s biggest domestic crisis so far, she has since seen her approval ratings recover to around 60 percent as new arrivals have tapered off.

“The parting is hard for me”, Merkel acknowledged, adding she had to accept that the US constitution limited a president’s time in office to eight years, drawing a wink and a smile from Obama.

The head of the German Council on Foreign Relations, Daniela Schwarzer, said Merkel’s sense of duty had likely shaped her decision.

“Everything that’s about how it all depends on me, especially after the elections in the USA, honors me, but at the same time I find it very much grotesque and nearly weird”, she said.

He urged them to work on common challenges with a Trump administration on the “basis of the core values that define the United States and Europe as open democracies”. Germany is the last European stop of Obama’s final tour overseas as USA president.

Merkel spoke Friday after meeting with the leaders of the United States, Spain, Italy, France and Britain.

During a fractious United States presidential campaign, Mr Trump had appeared to call into question a near 70-year-old security shield for U.S. allies under North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and vowed to withdraw from hard- fought deals on climate change and Iran’s nuclear programme.

Merkel said she understood the world was looking at her as a source of stability but rejected the notion that she alone had a role in keeping liberalism alive.

Yet skeptics point out that Merkel may not be suited to rally the West.

Despite her popularity, Merkel has been criticised for her decision of letting more than one million asylum seekers in Germany over the last two years. “The decision [to run] for a fourth term is – after 11 years in office – anything but trivial”, she told the news conference, adding that this decision was “as hard as never before” and she expects to face “challenges from all sides”.

“He has brought untold suffering on his people, if you look at Aleppo and other places”, she said. “That’s something the new businessman in the White House should be able to understand”.

At the moment, progress on the ceasefire accord was “unseen”, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the talks, in which the leaders also affirmed the “importance of continued cooperation through multilateral institutions, including NATO”. “That is what I fight for again and again, but we can only be successful together”, Merkel added.

Biographers say life in a police state taught Merkel to hide her true thoughts behind a poker face. She served as minister for women and families in Kohl’s first post-reunification Cabinet in the 1990s and then also as an environment minister. In an interview with the “Financial Times”, Schäuble said that Britain still had financial commitments to the European Union, which could continue until the year 2030.

“We have to get along with whomever the Americans elect”, he said.

“I wish I could be there to lighten her load somewhat”.