美国国家公共电台 NPR How The 2010s Were German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Decade

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

The 2010s in Europe started with a financial crisis that threatened to break up the European Union. In the middle of the decade, more than a million migrants from the Middle East arrived. And at the end of the decade, populist movements are now threatening European cohesion¹. Through it all, there has been Germany's chancellor² - Angela Merkel. But Merkel says she won't seek re-election in 2021, and she's already stepped down as leader of her Christian³ Democratic party. NPR's Rob Schmitz has this review of Merkel's decade.

ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE⁴: Angela Merkel is not a passionate⁵ speaker. She doesn't arouse the public with big ideas or big promises. Her personality probably wouldn't make her a great candidate for, say, president of the U.S. But, says Merkel biographer Stefan Kornelius, her quiet, technocratic⁶ style through the past decade has been a perfect fit for Germany.

STEFAN KORNELIUS: People don't want to have the sort of visionary thing and being led with flying flags. They just want to have predictability and the guarantee that things are calm and under control. And she gave that guarantee for pretty much all of her rule.

SCHMITZ: And she's done so through a decade when Europe's cohesion was constantly under threat.

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CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL: (Speaking German).

SCHMITZ: July 2015 - Merkel takes the podium at the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, and argues for a third financial bailout for Greece. The decade began with the financial crisis that impacted the EU. The economy of Greece falls apart, unemployment is on the rise, and violent protests are on the streets of Athens. By the summer of 2015, Greece is on the verge⁷ of leaving the Eurozone.

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MERKEL: (Speaking German).

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SCHMITZ: Merkel tells her government they cannot sit back and watch. And they didn't. Greece was bailed⁸ out, and the EU held together.

JOSEF JANNING: You know, Merkel's approach was to do whatever it takes to prevent the EU from falling apart.

SCHMITZ: Josef Janning is a former senior policy fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

JANNING: She has been remarkably⁹ successful - because there were severe crises; there were profound challenges to the integrity and the coherence¹⁰ of the EU. And it survived.

SCHMITZ: Among the tough decisions she's made in the past decade - phasing out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, standing¹¹ up to Putin when Russia annexed¹² Crimea from Ukraine and allowing around a million war refugees to resettle in Germany.

However, Janning says, many of these decisions did not go far enough. He says after the Greek debt crisis, Merkel could have fought to strengthen the EU's fiscal¹³ authority over member states, but she didn't. In the wake of the refugee crisis, she could have worked harder to achieve a common EU immigration and asylum¹⁴ legislation, agency and border police to manage the issue. But that eluded¹⁵ her as well. Senior Brookings fellow Constanze Stelzenmuller says Merkel's hallmark style of solving problems through compromise, always choosing a middle path, may have prevented lasting¹⁶ solutions to Europe's biggest problems.

CONSTANZE STELZENMULLER: Merkel, like Clinton - and I think in this, she imitated Clinton - espoused¹⁷ a kind of technocratic, there-is-no-alternative centrism that took the belief and the identity factor out of politics - or rather, pushed it to the sidelines, where it was taken up by the extremists.

SCHMITZ: And those extremists, says Stelzenmuller, have gained ground during a leadership that has put compromise ahead of ideology¹⁸. The right-wing AfD party is more popular than ever in Germany. And now, at the end of the decade, many EU countries are run by populist leaders who see Merkel's leadership as outdated¹⁹, says Josef Janning.

JANNING: They reject this ultra-pragmatic bargaining approach and rather create disruption by breaking with the rules, breaking with the establishment, breaking with the institutions of the parties in their own countries and rather concentrating a lot of power on themselves and on a leadership circle around them.

SCHMITZ: And these threats to democracy are precisely²⁰ why Merkel has been a crucial leader in the past decade, argues Stefan Kornelius.

KORNELIUS: She will stand as an example on how democracy lives from compromise, from finding the middle ground, from not overreaching and definitely not from arousing people wherever you step and go.

SCHMITZ: Kornelius says Merkel has kept alight the flame of liberal democracy during a decade when the foundation of democracy was shaken, when populists were on the rise and when the West, as a unifying²¹ ideal with the U.S. at its helm, was collapsing²².

Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Berlin.

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1 cohesion   

n.团结，凝结力

参考例句：

• I had to bring some cohesion into the company.我得使整个公司恢复凝聚力。
• The power of culture is deeply rooted in the vitality,creativity and cohesion of a nation. 文化的力量，深深熔铸在民族的生命力、创造力和凝聚力之中。

2 chancellor   

n.(英)大臣；法官；(德、奥)总理；大学校长

参考例句：

• They submitted their reports to the Chancellor yesterday.他们昨天向财政大臣递交了报告。
• He was regarded as the most successful Chancellor of modern times.他被认为是现代最成功的财政大臣。

3 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 passionate   

adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的

参考例句：

• He is said to be the most passionate man.据说他是最有激情的人。
• He is very passionate about the project.他对那个项目非常热心。

6 technocratic   

adj.由技术专家官员组成的；受技术官僚影响的

参考例句：

• But there is method in Europe's technocratic madness, the official went on. 但欧洲的专家政治论者的愤怒是有原因的，这个位官员接着说道。 来自互联网
• Mr Juppé was floored in part by his contemptuous, technocratic attitude towards union leaders. 朱佩对工会领导蛮横与不屑，是导致他一败涂地的部分原因。 来自互联网

7 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

8 bailed   

保释，帮助脱离困境( bail的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Fortunately the pilot bailed out before the plane crashed. 飞机坠毁之前，驾驶员幸运地跳伞了。
• Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed it out. 船里进了些水，厨师把水舀了出去。

9 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

10 coherence   

n.紧凑；连贯；一致性

参考例句：

• There was no coherence between the first and the second half of the film.这部电影的前半部和后半部没有连贯性。
• Environmental education is intended to give these topics more coherence.环境教育的目的是使这些课题更加息息相关。

11 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

12 annexed   

[法] 附加的，附属的

参考例句：

• Germany annexed Austria in 1938. 1938年德国吞并了奥地利。
• The outlying villages were formally annexed by the town last year. 那些偏远的村庄于去年正式被并入该镇。

13 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。

14 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

15 eluded   

v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的过去式和过去分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到

参考例句：

• The sly fox nimbly eluded the dogs. 那只狡猾的狐狸灵活地躲避开那群狗。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The criminal eluded the police. 那个罪犯甩掉了警察的追捕。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

16 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

17 espoused   

v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• They espoused the notion of equal opportunity for all in education. 他们赞同在教育方面人人机会均等的观念。
• The ideas she espoused were incomprehensible to me. 她所支持的意见令我难以理解。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

19 outdated   

adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时

参考例句：

• That list of addresses is outdated,many have changed.那个通讯录已经没用了，许多地址已经改了。
• Many of us conform to the outdated customs laid down by our forebears.我们许多人都遵循祖先立下的过时习俗。

20 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

21 unifying   

使联合( unify的现在分词 )； 使相同； 使一致； 统一

参考例句：

• In addition, there were certain religious bonds of a unifying kind. 此外，他们还有某种具有一种统一性质的宗教上的结合。
• There is a unifying theme, and that is the theme of information flow within biological systems. 我们可以用一个总的命题，把生物学系统内的信息流来作为这一研究主题。

22 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。