Looking for future surprises that could shock the world? This would not be an exercise Europe’s top leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel need these days. For her, the surprises, shocks, and upheavals are coming faster than ever. For years, she has played a key role in crisis management at the helm of the largest and strongest member country of the European Union.
What is causing unease in some quarters is the question of whether she can and will hold on to power after Germany’s 2017 national election. Following the vote by the majority of UK citizens to leave the European Union, a major challenge for the bloc’s leaders will be to keep the remaining twenty-seven-member European Union together. At this juncture of the historic European integration process, another Merkel “We can do this” could help. But she would need to widen her political base in Germany considerably and end the divisive quarreling among EU member states whose leaders she offended last year by not consulting with them before opening the German borders. But she also would need a lot of luck to prevent the smoldering economic
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