The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum taking place now in Davos is "The Shifting Power Equation" and the shift was apparent with the opening keynote address. As David Rothkopf writes in the Huffington Post blog, Bush and Blair are out, Angela Merkel is in:
The star of the first day of Davos was a homely middle-aged woman from a declining region of the world. Not very stylishly dressed in a burgundy blazer, looking vaguely professorial, thoughtfully and without pretext staring off into the half-distance as she framed her thoughts, she nevertheless held 1,000 people in the Congress Center’s main hall rapt as she spoke about globalization, her own experiences, the relationship between the developed and the developing world, and her sense of Europe’s role.
Addressed by session chairman Klaus Schwab as "Frau Bundeskanzler", Angela Merkel is an unlikely focus for such a glamorous event–or rather she would be if not for the fact that she leads Europe’s most important country, and that she is doing such a good job of it.
You can view a Webcast of Chancellor Merkel’s address here.
Incidentally, I thought it was a bit ironic that in her speech Angela Merkel celebrates globalization, acknowledging that this indeed resulting in a power shift to more dynamic economies such as China and India, but she rejects expanding the G-8 Group to include those countries.
Climate protection and energy conservation were key topics in Angela Merkel’s speech, and she told the audience that she was " hearing signals from the U.S. that are more hopeful than those of past years” referring to comments made by President Bush in his State of the Union Address.
Bushes remarks on climate were the only positive aspects of his address, judging from the overall reaction to the SOTU in the German Press. Stern reported that Bush seemed to be in an "isolation chamber" as he spoke before Congress. His new SURGE strategy in Iraq didn’t get much support either. In Berlin, Merkel’s office said there were "no surprises" in this new plan, and Karsten Voigt (SPD) who coordinates US-Germany relations in Berlin told N-TV that Bush’s strategy "offered little chance for success." One gets the sense that in Europe Bush has become pretty irrelevant on the world stage, as Angela Merkel’s star continues to rise.
