When negotiations were blocked, she “mostly found something that unites us to move things along.” Merkel was a compromise machine,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said recently. Still, she was viewed as a crucial leader in the unwieldy 27-nation EU, famed for her stamina in coaxing agreements in marathon negotiating sessions. Merkel dismissed being labeled as “leader of the free world” during that period, saying leadership is never up to one person or country. At their first meeting in the White House in March 2017, when photographers shouted for them to shake hands, she quietly asked Trump “do you want to have a handshake?” but there was no response from the president, who looked ahead. President Donald Trump, with whom she had a difficult relationship. That stance was a strong counterpoint to former U.S. The global financial crisis and the migrant influx “made clear how much we depend on cooperation beyond national borders and how indispensable international institutions and multilateral instruments are to be able to cope with the big challenges of our time,” Merkel said, identifying those as climate change, digitization and migration. She was steadfast in pursuing multilateral solutions to the world’s problems, a principle she set out at a military parade in her honor last week. She was regarded as being “able to have a dialogue with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin on behalf of the West,” David-Wilp said. Merkel was a driving force behind EU sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine, and also spearheaded so-far-unfinished efforts to bring about a diplomatic solution there. “Thanks to you, the center has held through many storms,” he said. President Barack Obama thanked her for “taking the high ground for so many years.” In a video message at Merkel’s final EU summit in October, former U.S.
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