Merkel at her peak - again

She's the standout woman. By now it's practically tradition for opinion polls to put Angela Merkel at the top of the list of Germany's most important politicians.

Her position within her own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is so unassailable that she sometimes almost comes across as its monarch. And the esteem for the chancellor at the international level also continues to grow. The Times of London recently named her 'Person of the Year" - an expression of respect from euroskeptic Britain, of all places, for a chancellor so committed to the European cause.

On the domestic front, 2014 saw Merkel once again as the frontwoman of a grand coalition, which was brought together and put on track without too much noisy clattering. On the international stage a new role fell to Merkel in the context of the very serious, at times dramatic, Ukraine crisis.

No other Western head of state - certainly no representative of the EU - was and still is so often in phone contact with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, with the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, with US President Barack Obama. The spokesman for the German government has made several dozen announcements, a few terse lines long, indicating that such phone calls had taken place. They were certainly never routine.

The fact that the French president is also in on many of the summit meetings, such as the one in the Kazakh capital Astana in mid-January, does not lessen the chancellor's significance and that of her similarly committed foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. No - Merkel the European is very conscious of having her established partners at her side. After more than nine years in power, she is the longest-serving leader in the G7, the circle of the most important industrial states - and also, incidentally, the one best acquainted with Russian thinking and the Russian soul.

This is precisely why she is counting so emphatically on European unanimity. No one knows where the Ukraine crisis will lead politically. It could be that in retrospect Merkel's crisis diplomacy of 2014 will rank alongside the hectic crisis management after the outbreak of the financial crisis more than six years ago.

Back then she stood for a financially strong Germany: Now she stands for a united Europe. The Times' justification for honoring her with the title "Person of the Year" was that she was a prominent European politician and "one of the most influential women in the world." 2014 has demonstrated that Merkel also has a diplomat's straightforwardness and decisiveness, which would stand her in good stead for assuming a function or office on the international stage, in Brussels or at the United Nations in New York.

Domestic stage

And at home, on the domestic stage? A federal budget with no new debt; successful work statistics; the economy as an engine - this too is indicative of Merkel's political skill. Yet a comment by one of her conservative political companions who embarked on the election period with her a year ago as a federal minister served to remind us of quiet rumblings within the Union camp.

The Christian Social Union politician Hans-Peter Friedrich, who had to give up his post as federal minister for food and agriculture as a consequence of the Edathy affair, soon found himself alone in his criticism of Merkel. He said she needed to take a clearer position on the economy and on conservative themes.

Nevertheless, there was more than 10 minutes applause for the chairwoman at the CDU party conference in Cologne at the beginning of December; and a similarly warm reception a few days later from the CSU. Record clapping.

Yet here and there it was apparent that the Union is slightly weakening in German politics overall. Not at federal level, but in the states, in the big cities. And at some point the chair of the party will have to take responsibility for that. In this respect, 2015 is a transition year. But 2016 will see the start of an election marathon: state elections in five federal states, including Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Württemberg, and another three before the federal election.

The states will be making the preliminary decision about the continued power of Angela Merkel's CDU to set the agenda - and the people applauding at the party conferences know that. They're betting on Merkel. But at the moment, even "one of the most influential women in the world" needs the support of grassroots voters.