Angela Merkel presents her ebook “Freedom” in Italy | EUROtoday

Am Donnerstag struggle Angela Merkel in Mailand. Sie signierte Bücher in der Buchhandlung in der Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, die Journalisten sagten „Guten Tag!“ und Merkel antwortete lächelnd „Buongiorno!“, und allein diese kleine Geste charmanter Zugewandtheit reichte aus – und schon war Italiens Presse wieder verliebt in die Altkanzlerin. Angela Merkel wird in Italien gemocht, von vielen Italienern sogar sehr. Sie ist für sie die gute, die beruhigende Deutsche. Sicherlich, während der Eurokrise 2010 war man nicht gut auf sie zu sprechen. Man war der Ansicht, Angela Merkel gehe zu hart mit Italien ins Gericht. Doch der Ärger von damals ist verflogen.

Zu ihrem 70. Geburtstag wurden ihr Dutzende Artikel gewidmet, die Reisen im Ruhestand nach Florenz und Südtirol werden mit freundlichem Interesse verfolgt, und mit Spannung erwartete man im Bel paese ihr Buch. Es heißt auf Italienisch „Libertà“, ist zeitgleich mit der Originalausgabe im Verlag Rizzoli erschienen und gilt schon jetzt als Verkaufsschlager. Die Buchvorstellung in Mailand, die einzige in Italien, war sofort ausgebucht. Der Ort: der Palazzo Clerici, ein prächtiger Stadtpalast aus dem 17. Jahrhundert nahe der Scala, in dem das Institut für Internationale Politikstudien untergebracht ist, das den Abend mit dem Verlag ausrichtete.

The moderator: the journalist and politician Walter Veltroni, former mayor of Rome and former chief of the Democratic Party, who requested extra dutiful than inspiring questions. The viewers: Milanese lecturers and Italian academic celebrities with numerous cashmere and Prada, they listened intently. Angela Merkel entered the stage carrying black trousers, a blazer (she had chosen Milanese blue) and a crystal necklace and greeted the economist and politician Mario Monti within the viewers like a great previous pal. During his time as Prime Minister, he repeatedly defined to Merkel the way of thinking of the Italians.

He by no means regarded down on her, the East German, as a “semi-skilled European”, however sadly that’s precisely what she skilled in Germany, mentioned Merkel. But the dialog was much less about dependable companions: Donald Trump? Always remained an actual property supplier at coronary heart. The relationship with Vladimir Putin? Have gotten worse through the pandemic. The fall of Bashar al-Assad? “Very good news,” mentioned Merkel. “I wish the Syrians that they now have a safe home again.”

Veltroni recalled that Merkel needed to cope with seven totally different Italian prime ministers throughout her sixteen years as chancellor. The greatest basic drawback in Italy’s politics couldn’t have been summarized extra pointedly or self-deprecatingly; Veltroni needed to chuckle about it himself.

The viewers additionally laughed, Angela Merkel did not chuckle. She in all probability suspected what would come subsequent: her collaboration with Silvio Berlusconi, though she lately advised the newspaper “Corriere della Sera” that the connection with him was extra pleasant than many individuals thought. In Italy, nonetheless, everybody nonetheless remembers Berlusconi’s sexist feedback about Merkel. And how in 2009, as host of the NATO summit in Kehl, he ignored her when greeting her and continued speaking on his cellular phone. After his fall as prime minister in 2011, Berlusconi claimed for years that she and Angela Merkel had plotted with Nicolas Sarkozy to dump him politically.

Was there one thing in that? Veltroni wished to know, and for a blink of a watch it was thought that Veltroni, who as soon as had nice political ambitions and had needed to vacate his publish as occasion chief due to his occasion’s crushing defeats towards the Cavaliere (Berlusconi referred to as Veltroni a “recycled Stalinist”) ), may desire a “yes”. But Angela Merkel shook her head.

She wasn’t that highly effective, she mentioned, and when a minister falls, it primarily has to do with inside constellations. Sarkozy revealed his memoirs a number of years in the past in a number of volumes. What he writes in regards to the Berlusconi case reads slightly in another way. The former French president has at all times been a person of self-praise.