Word: merkel
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...leader of the Christian Democrats is Angela Merkel, who, as a protégé of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's, is known to be a tough political fighter, if lacking in Schröder's campaign experience. Should her party succeed in September, Merkel, 50, a former physics professor who was raised in East Germany, would become Germany's first female Chancellor. She has said her immediate focus would be domestic issues, particularly the economy. (She supports loosening job-protection laws, overhauling pensions and curbing the power of trade unions.) But on international affairs, she is likely to be somewhat friendlier...
...Eastern Europe, where low corporate rates are the rule, of "tax dumping." The cut will make Germany's effective tax rate lower than those of France, Italy and Spain, but still higher than rates in most of the 10 new E.U. countries. And it seems likely to happen: Angela Merkel, leader of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (cdu), said her party would support the reduction as long as it involved no new borrowing. Business leaders were pleased, with the stock market reacting modestly; the DAX index was up 0.42% at week's end. "It's a step in the right...
...interest in the nationalist idea," Maaz says. "They used their vote to air their feelings of revenge and disappointment." The CDU is feeling the voters' wrath, too. The party lost almost 16% of its support in Saxony and was down 7.2% in Brandenburg - a blow to CDU chairman Angela Merkel, an easterner and widely expected candidate for Chancellor in 2006. That could mean a reprieve of sorts for the embattled Schröder. Nationally, support for the CDU has slipped from 50% to 42%, while the SPD is up from 23% to 27%, according to the polling firm Emnid...
...fought back last week in a debate in parliament over his budget, denying that he had misled voters. "This country still has growth and can still hold its head up high," he said. He was feisty - but didn't offer a new recovery plan. Opposition leader Angela Merkel ridiculed his lack of new ideas. "You give us the impression of a man with his back to the wall," Merkel said. Schröder will have to do better if he wants to stem the tide of departing Mittelstand businesses. One place to start: a planned increase in employer pension...
...Merkel's supposed strength was that as a woman who grew up in East Germany, she could tap those constituencies. But polling data indicates that Stoiber is equally popular with both groups. "Stoiber's image of being conservative, even reactionary, is going to change as he moves to the center," says Lösche. And he's entering the race when the conservatives are far stronger than only a few short months...