Angela Merkel’s favorite dishes, which she happily cooks herself, are potato soup and plum pie. Both are traditionally served in Germany in the fall, but Merkel will clearly not have time to stand at the stove in the coming months. September 26 – the day of parliamentary elections in Germany – will not be the last day of Merkel’s career as Federal Chancellor. She will remain in office. heads of government before the formation of a new cabinet. “I take my work with full responsibility. And this will not change until the last day of my term as Chancellor,” Merkel said recently.
Over the past decades, new chancellors and cabinet ministers have been sworn in on average five to six weeks after elections. But, for example, in 2017, it took five and a half months to form a new ruling coalition. So it may well be that Angela Merkel will take the title of political long-liver from her political adoptive father Helmut Kohl, who to this day has remained the longest-serving chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. His term of office ended in 1998, 5870 days after taking office. To break this record, Merkel will have to resign no earlier than December 17, 2021.
“I will read and sleep a little”
During a visit to Washington in July 2021, Angela Merkel was asked how she imagines her retirement. Usually she answered this question evasively, but this time she made it clear that at first she wanted to rest and not accept any invitations. First of all, she will have to realize that her former tasks “are now performed by someone else,” Merkel admitted. But, she added, “I’m sure I’ll love it.”
In the free time she has, she is going to think about what she “really interests”, said Merkel – after all, over the past 16 years, she has not had much time for this. “After that, I may try to read something, then my eyes will start closing with fatigue, and I will sleep a little, well, and then we’ll see what happens next,” the German chancellor shared her upcoming plans with a smile.
Miss Merkel is investigating
Photographer Andreas Mühe and detective novelist David Safier have already looked into the future of Angela Merkel. The first took a series of photographs of the retired German Chancellor’s double – the exhibition can be seen in the Dresden Exhibition Hall in Lipsiusbau.
The 70-year-old theater director Annegret Hahn, the photographer’s mother, played the role of Merkel’s double. Most of the photographs were taken in the chancellor’s bungalow in Bonn, where Angela Merkel’s predecessor, Helmut Kohl, lived and worked for more than 16 years. Here she is posing, sitting on the bed, or standing on the terrace, and here she is in the garden. Her pose exudes calm and sometimes loneliness.
Cover of the book “Miss Merkel”
Writer David Zafir, in turn, believes that with retirement Angela Merkel will quickly get bored, left without her schedule, full of meetings and events. In the humorous novel Miss Merkel, he describes how the former chancellor, after moving to a country house in Brandenburg, struggles with the boredom of measured country life. Was all she left to do was walk around the neighborhood and bake pies? But suddenly there is a murder in the district, and Miss Merkel, by analogy with the heroine of Agatha Christie’s detectives Miss Marple, eagerly takes on his investigation.
Financially, Merkel has nothing to worry about
The detective “Miss Merkel”, of course, is nothing more than an entertaining fiction, but the question that David Zafir raises in it is quite natural: what should a person feel, who for decades was responsible for the fate of not only Germany, but sometimes the whole of Europe, and suddenly lost the usual way of life? “A person realizes what he lacks only when he is deprived of it,” Angela Merkel said not so long ago during one of her speeches in Berlin.
On July 17, Angela Merkel turned 67 years old. Financially, she has nothing to worry about. She currently earns € 25,000 a month as German Chancellor. In addition, she is entitled to a little over 10 thousand euros as a member of the Bundestag. When Merkel stops working, for the next three months she will receive her salary in full, and then, for a maximum of 21 months, – 50 percent of this amount as financial payments for the transition period.
Pension – 15 thousand euros per month
The right to a pension, the procedure for its appointment and calculation are regulated by law in Germany. When calculating Angela Merkel’s pension, her seniority as chancellor, minister and deputy of the Bundestag will be taken into account. Merkel’s pension for her work in parliament will be awarded in accordance with the Law on Bundestag Deputies, and for work in the government – under the Law on Federal Ministers of 1953.
The amount of Merkel’s pension will be very significant also due to the fact that she was in the public service for many years: according to paragraph 20 of the Law on Deputies of the Bundestag, for example, she is entitled to a maximum pension of 65 percent of her salary, since her experience in parliament is without small 31 years old. In addition, federal chancellors are entitled to 27.74 percent of their previous salary after a minimum of four years in office. With each additional year, the size of the pension benefit increases by 2.39167 percent to a maximum of 71.75 percent.
Angela Merkel has been a member of the Bundestag for over 30 years
As a result, Angela Merkel can count on a pension of about 15 thousand euros per month. She also retains a lifelong right to bodyguard and a company car with a driver. In addition, Merkel, like the rest of the heads of the German government and presidents, will retain an office in the Bundestag building in Berlin and a small staff of an office manager, two assistants and a secretary.
A new career? It is not excluded
Former civil servants are required by law to keep secrets. But even if they are not allowed to talk about much, they are very popular in the business world thanks to their immense political connections. Some of Angela Merkel’s predecessors as chancellor went into business after their resignation. Helmut Schmidt became one of the publishers of Die Zeit in 1982 and was a very popular speaker. In 2012, in an interview, he admitted: “I have a rule: for less than 15 thousand dollars, I do not give reports.”
Former chancellors Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schröder converted their political capital and fame into cash even more successfully than Schmidt. So, Kohl founded a political and strategic consulting company, thanks to which he made very good money as a lobbyist and consultant.
The case of ex-chancellor Schroeder
As for Schroeder, a scandal erupted in Germany in 2005 over the fact that the former Chancellor, just a few months after resigning, headed the Supervisory Board and then the Shareholders’ Committee of Gazprom’s subsidiary Nord Stream AG, the operator the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project. Schroeder lobbied for the construction of this gas pipeline when he was Chancellor.
Gerhard Schroeder’s departure to Gazprom’s Nord Stream structure caused a scandal in Germany
Currently, the law obliges former members of the government who intend to go into business, in advance to send a request to the department of the Federal Chancellor, whether this activity will not harm the public interest. The Ethics Commission advises the government, which, in case of doubt, can grant the ex-minister a deferral of up to 18 months.
Merkel will stay in Berlin. At least for a while
So what does Merkel want after retirement – to get a new job or an honorary post? Until now, she has never answered this question. According to the chancellor, now she has no time to even think about it – work in the office of the chancellor takes up all of her time. “It is not yet time to deal with this issue, but the day will come and it will come,” Merkel assures shortly.
One thing is for sure – she will stay in Berlin in the near future. Angela Merkel’s husband, quantum chemist Joachim Sauer, professor emeritus at the Humboldt University of Berlin, recently renewed his senior research fellow. So far – until 2022.
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