EVER since the euro crisis broke in late 2009 this newspaper has criticised the world’s most powerful woman. We disagreed with Angela Merkel’s needlessly austere medicine: the continent’s recession has been unnecessarily long and brutal as a result. We wanted the chancellor to shrug off her cautious incrementalism and the mantle of her country’s history—and to lead Europe more forcefully. She is largely to blame for the failure to create a full banking union for the euro zone, the first of many institutional changes it still needs. She has refused to lead public opinion, never spelling out to her voters how much Germany is to blame for the euro mess (nor how much its banks have been rescued by its bail-outs). We also worry that she has not done enough at home: in recent years no country in the European Union has made fewer structural reforms, and her energy policies have landed Germany with high subsidies for renewables and high electricity prices.

德国民众应该再次把选票投给安格拉•默克尔，让她不仅作为德国的总理，更作为整个欧洲的领导人连任下去。

自2009年末欧洲危机爆发时起，《经济学人》就在批评安格拉•默克尔这位全世界最有权力的女性。在我们看来，她的一系列经济紧缩“药方”完全没有必要，且整个欧洲的衰退期更因此变得冗长又愈加剧烈，而这本来是可以避免的。我们希望总理能甩掉她那谨慎的渐进主义，摆脱厚重的历史帷幔，转而以更有力地姿态领导整个欧洲。欧元区种种机构改革中，最先需要建立的便是完整的银行业联盟，该联盟至今未能创建，默克尔要负绝大部分的责任。默克尔拒绝引导舆论，对选民绝口不提德国要为欧洲的纷乱局面负多大的责任，也绝不提及德国的救助计划到底拯救了多少德国银行。本刊还很担忧的是，默克尔在国内的举措并不足以应对当下形势，毕竟近几年来欧洲联盟内部，唯有德国进行的结构改革最少；而她的能源措施，又使得政府不得不承受高额的绿色能源补贴，德国民众也要承担高昂的电费。