The Unrepentant Chancellor: the Toxic Legacy of Angela Merkel (Opinion)

In October 2025, Angela Merkel gave an interview to Hungarian outlet Partizan where she suggested that Poland and the Baltic states contributed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout her sixteen years as Chancellor, these were the countries that knew Putin best: Poland led the warnings about Nord Stream I and II, the Baltic states repeatedly cautioned against energy dependence, and together they argued that Merkel’s engagement strategy was dangerously naive—especially after the Russian invasion of Crimea back in 2014.

Now, after they’d been proven right about all of that time and again, here was the same Angela Merkel blaming them for the invasion, suggesting that they bore responsibility for the war because they’d opposed her final diplomatic outreach to Putin in June 2021. “This was not supported by some,” she said. “That was mainly the Baltics, but Poland was also against it, because they were afraid we wouldn’t have a common policy.”

Then came the kicker: “I left office, and then Putin’s aggression began.”

To say that the response to this interview wasn’t exactly positive would be putting it lightly. Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak branded Merkel as “the founder of the Putin regime,” while former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki went further, calling her “among the most harmful politicians of Europe in the last century.” Latvia’s foreign minister said he was “astonished” that Merkel still didn’t understand Russia after all these years.

This interview was not some slip of the tongue—they’re her genuine, long-held views. Just eleven months earlier, Merkel had published Freedom: Memories 1954-2021, a 700-page defense of virtually every major policy decision of her chancellorship. On Russia, she insisted that she was right to expand trade; on Nord Stream, she claimed that cutting ties earlier would have created energy crises sooner, so it was all fine.

The interview and memoir together paint a damning portrait of a leader who watches her own successor label her signature policies as “historic mistakes” while she points fingers at the countries who tried to stop her. They also reveal a pattern that runs across every major policy failure of her chancellorship—from energy to immigration to defense spending, Merkel’s response is always the same: self-justification, zero introspection, and blame deflected onto those who disagreed with her. In sixteen years of chancellorship and years of reflection since, she's found fault with Eastern Europeans for being too suspicious, coalition partners for blocking defense spending, and even timing itself—but never, not once, with Angela Merkel.

Russia and Energy: “We Simply Didn’t Listen.”

By the time that Russian tanks rolled across the border into Ukraine in 2022, more than half of Germany’s gas imports came from Russia. This wasn’t an accident or an unfortunate dependency that crept up slowly over the years, but rather the logical conclusion of deliberate policy choices Merkel made despite warnings from those who knew better: approving the Nord Stream pipeline transporting gas from Russia to Germany back in the late 2000s, then doubling down with Nord Stream II in 2015, and maintaining those commitments even after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Warnings came early on in her time in office and never stopped. Having been Chancellor for about a year in 2006, Merkel heard Poland’s then-Deputy Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski invoke history's darkest parallel regarding Nord Stream: "Poland has a particular sensitivity to corridors and deals above our head... That was the Molotov-Ribbentrop tradition... we don't want any repetition." It wasn’t just Poland, though—from Warsaw to the Baltics, leaders who understood Russian behavior all too well warned that further economic integration with the country was a dangerous gambit.

Fast forward to 2016. By now, Merkel had decided that one Nord Stream pipeline wasn’t enough—Germany needed even more Russian gas through Nord Stream II. Outside her chancellery, the consensus was damning: eight Central and Eastern European leaders—including those in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, and Poland—sent a joint letter to the European Commission warning that the new pipeline risked “potentially destabilizing geopolitical consequences.” Ukraine, for its part, spent years pleading that the pipeline would strip away its leverage over Moscow while costing them over $3 billion annually in lost transit fees that the overland pipelines would bypass. Following his 2019 election, President Zelensky called it a “dangerous geopolitical weapon of the Kremlin.”

Undeterred, Merkel pushed ahead anyway. Her government argued that Nord Stream II was purely an economic project, pointing out that Russia had been a “reliable supplier” even during the Cold War. The pipeline was finished just weeks before Russia’s 2022 invasion—though it was never actually operated, cancelled before certification.

Making Germany’s energy dependence on Moscow even worse was her government’s near-complete nuclear phase-out during her tenure. Within days of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, seven of Germany’s oldest reactors shut down on Merkel’s orders. She aimed to have all of them closed by 2022—a target date that would come back to haunt her country.

The stated reason was safety, reflecting some genuine public concern after Fukushima and sustained Green Party pressure. The plan was to replace nuclear with renewables, primarily solar. Over €20 billion annually at the peak—that's what Merkel's government poured into this energy transition through surcharges on household electricity bills.

This was, however, Germany—while known for many things, wide-open sunny deserts aren’t exactly one of them. To the surprise of apparently only Merkel’s government, the panels they set up were operating at roughly 10% capacity. The country was subsidizing one of the world’s most expensive solar buildouts in one of the least suitable climates for it.

Reality, however, couldn’t be deferred forever. When Russia cut off the gas in mid-2022, the country Merkel had left behind faced a crisis entirely of her making—Moscow had done exactly what half the world had warned her about. Emergency legislation brought old coal plants roaring back to life—a grim irony for an energy transition that was supposed to reduce fossil fuel dependence. The problem wasn't pursuing renewables; it was designing a system with no backup plan, one that required Russian gas as a bridge fuel while eliminating nuclear baseload power.

Critics had questioned the logic all along: how does a tsunami in Japan justify making your energy security contingent on Vladimir Putin while simultaneously betting on solar in a cloudy country?

Years later, the admission came. Former Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who had been part of Merkel’s government, offered a confession that captured the entire debacle in one sentence: “Yes, it’s obvious… that continuing Nord Stream II was a mistake. We simply didn’t listen to the Eastern Europeans”

Yet in her 2024 memoir, Merkel defends it all: “If we had not bought Russian gas, Germany would have had the problem of high energy prices 10 years earlier.”

This defense is absurd on its face—it ignores all of the alternatives that she actively rejected. Germany could have kept its existing nuclear plants running or, if things were that bad, opened new ones. Their safety record on this is flawless, and nuclear is both more efficient than natural gas and endlessly cleaner than coal. Yet instead, one of the continent’s cloudiest countries blew out the budget on solar. The country could have built LNG import terminals years earlier to diversify gas suppliers beyond Russia—but Berlin waited until after the 2022 invasion to frantically construct them at emergency speeds and inflated costs.

Merkel’s argument essentially claims Russia was the only affordable option. But Russia was only the "only" option because of the other choices she made. The high energy prices Germany faces now aren't just from losing Russian gas—they're from having to rebuild an entire energy infrastructure on emergency timelines because the previous strategy left no backup plan.

Post-Merkel German officials aren't subtle with their assessment of this legacy. Former Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called Nord Stream 2 "a severe mistake that cost Germany dearly," adding that Germany "paid... by giving up its security." Robert Habeck, the Economy Minister under Merkel’s successor Olaf Scholz, labeled the pipeline a "historic mistake." When your own successors are using phrases like "severe mistake" and "historic mistake," it’s hard to wave it away as ‘partisan sniping’. Nor is it just regarding Russia where Merkel’s legacy seems to be crumbling away.

Immigration: The Political Earthquake

“Wir schaffen das”—we can do this. With those three words in 2015, Merkel set off a political earthquake that continues to reshape Europe a decade later—with little sign of letting up.

Between 2015 and 2016, Merkel’s Germany admitted roughly 890,000 asylum seekers, predominantly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The decision was framed as a humanitarian imperative—and to her credit, on some level, there were genuine humanitarian motivations behind it. These people were fleeing genuine horror in their home countries, many of whom simply wanted to carry out their daily lives outside of a warzone.

The migration crisis had already arrived at Europe’s doorstep. Thousands were drowning in the Mediterranean, bodies were washing up on Greek beaches, and Italy’s islands were at a breaking point. So far, so understandable.

But, in September 2015, rather than working towards a coordinated European response, Merkel suspended the Dublin Regulation for Syrians—the rule requiring asylum seekers to be processed in their first EU country of entry. Germany would now accept Syrian refugees regardless of where they'd entered Europe. While EU-wide asylum applications were already rising from 563,000 in 2014, Merkel's September announcement accelerated the surge—applications hit 1.26 million by year's end and continued at 1.20 million in 2016. The message spread fast: Germany's doors were open.

Germany's political transformation, dramatic as it was, was only part of the story. Merkel's decision didn't just reshape her own country—it destabilized the entire European asylum system and poisoned relations between EU member states in ways that persist a decade later.

The cascade was immediate and chaotic. Sweden took in 163,000 asylum seekers in 2015—proportionally even more than Germany—and is still grappling with the integration challenges and gang violence that followed. Countries along migration routes scrambled to manage the surge. Austria announced intake caps and threatened border controls at the Brenner Pass, straining relations with Italy. Hungary built border fences with Serbia and Croatia, redirecting flows and creating new friction points. Several countries reintroduced internal border controls, suspending the free movement that had been Schengen's crowning achievement.

At home, every mainstream Germany party initially backed Merkel’s approach, leaving only the fringe Alternative for Deutschland to voice opposition—a party that hadn’t even cleared the 5% parliamentary threshold in 2013’s election. But by shutting down debate within the political mainstream, Merkel’s governing coalition handed the AfD an uncontested monopoly on immigration skepticism. The results were catastrophic: by 2017, the AfD entered parliament riding the “Wir schaffen das” backlash. Today, they poll over 20%, neck and neck with Merkel’s own Christian Democrats.

But the political transformation extended far beyond Germany's borders. Across Europe, far-right and populist parties capitalized on migration concerns, with research linking exposure to refugee inflows to higher far-right vote shares in multiple countries. Italy's Giorgia Meloni is now Prime Minister. Geert Wilders' anti-migration party became the largest in the Dutch parliament in 2023. Even in countries with lower direct exposure to refugee flows, Germany's 2015 decision became a defining political issue that nationalist movements exploited ruthlessly. The far-right normalization that began with AfD's parliamentary entry has become a continental phenomenon.

It took until April 2024—nine years—for the EU to finally agree on a new migration pact with the mandatory solidarity mechanisms and burden-sharing that should have been negotiated before Merkel opened the doors. Nine years of poisoned relations, political deadlock, and rising extremism because one German chancellor decided to act first and coordinate later.

In her memoir, Merkel defends the decision as a moral imperative—explaining that "my decision not to turn away refugees in 2015... was a decision in favor of people on European soil." She acknowledges that "you have to live with a bad image" when you do what you believe is right, but stands firmly by "Wir schaffen das." Morality aside, though, the political consequences speak for themselves: a transformed German party system, far-right normalization across the continent, years of EU dysfunction, and the end of consensus-based migration policy. These are consequences not just Germany but all of Europe will be managing for decades.

China: The Other Dependency

While Russia was grabbing headlines, Merkel was quietly building Germany's second strategic vulnerability—and this one might prove even harder to escape.

The numbers tell the story. Merkel visited China twelve times as Chancellor—more than any other European leader. Under her watch, German exports to China tripled. By the time she left office, Volkswagen was deriving almost 40% of its profits from Chinese sales, and both BMW and Mercedes weren't far behind. German chemical companies, for their part, had integrated their supply chains so deeply into China that unwinding them became practically impossible.

This wasn't normal trade. German automakers didn't just sell cars to China—they built entire production ecosystems there, betting their futures on a market they couldn't afford to lose. Chemical giants structured operations around Chinese demand. Machinery manufacturers staked everything on Beijing buying. As Canada is currently learning to its detriment, when your entire business model requires a single foreign government's cooperation, you've moved beyond trade into dependency.

In 2020, just one year before leaving office, Merkel pushed through the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. Critics warned about locking Europe into deeper dependencies without adequate safeguards. Human rights groups pointed out the agreement did little about forced labor. Then China imposed sanctions on EU officials in 2021—after the deal was signed but before ratification—and Brussels quietly shelved it. The whole episode revealed exactly how little leverage the agreement actually provided.

The dependencies she created are now painfully clear—and potentially catastrophic. If China invades Taiwan, Germany faces the same impossible choice it confronted with Russia: either maintain economic ties with an aggressor or accept devastating damage to core industries. Western sanctions on China would crater German automakers overnight. A broader rift between Beijing and the West means Berlin loses the Chinese market that props up major manufacturers—while also discovering that years of integrated supply chains have left Germany vulnerable to Chinese economic coercion. Beijing could weaponize access to critical materials or technology, knowing German industry has no quick alternatives. It's the Russia playbook all over again, except the dependencies run deeper and the economic stakes are higher.

Chancellor Scholz's government had adopted a policy of "de-risking"—explicitly aiming to reduce critical dependencies while publishing a 2023 China strategy that acknowledges Beijing as a systemic competitor. The shift in tone from Merkel's era is unmistakable, yet she continues justifying the engagement in her memoir as beneficial for European companies.

It's the same pattern: build the dependency, dismiss the warnings, leave successors to unwind what can't be quickly unwound.

The Verdict:

In September 2018, Donald Trump stood before the UN General Assembly and warned Germany about its dependence on Russian energy. “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course,” he said. The German delegation, seated in the front row, visibly laughed during the president’s speech. It went viral—Trump saying something outlandish that couldn’t possibly be true, something that the Germans knew far better than him on.

Four years later, Russia cut the pipelines completely. They weren’t laughing anymore.

The point here isn’t about Trump or his many other flaws. The point is that all of this was a threat that had become crystal clear to nearly all outside of Berlin. And if Trump was just too buffoonish to deliver that message in German eyes, then Merkel could’ve listened instead to the Poles or the Balts or even the Ukrainians.

What Germany faces now is the bill from choices that couldn't be deferred forever. The country survived the energy crisis—but only after €200+ billion in emergency spending and a painful restructuring that hammered industrial competitiveness. The far-right surge to 20% nationally shows no signs of receding. And the China dependencies that Merkel built loom as the next potential trap, with her successors scrambling to reduce vulnerabilities they can't quickly unwind.

Merkel's response has been systematic defense and deflection. Her November 2024 memoir Freedom offered, as one reviewer put it, "no apologies"—defending virtually every major decision with methodical justifications rather than reflection. Then came the October 2025 interview suggesting Poland and the Baltic states contributed to Russia's invasion because they opposed her diplomatic outreach—the same countries that spent years warning her not to build the dependencies that made the invasion so costly.

The tragedy isn't just that she made these choices—leaders make mistakes, and some of her decisions genuinely had support at the time. The tragedy is the complete absence of acknowledgment even as the consequences compound. Other recent leaders have shown at least some capacity for reflection: Tony Blair acknowledges Iraq as controversial and shows introspection about what went wrong. David Cameron clearly has regrets about the Brexit debacle. George W. Bush admitted "Mission Accomplished" was premature.

Germany deserved a leader who listened to allies instead of dismissing them. Someone who thought beyond short-term economic benefits. A chancellor who, when faced with overwhelming evidence that major policy decisions failed, could say "I was wrong."

Instead, they got Angela Merkel: steady, calm, wrong about nearly everything that mattered strategically, and utterly convinced she was right all along. The tragedy is that it is now the whole of Europe that has to live with her decisions… decisions those in the east, or those in countries through which refugees streamed to Germany, never even had a chance to vote for.