ANGELA MERKEL was chosen yesterday by Christian Democrats as their official challenger to Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor.

To cheers of “Angie, Angie!” from her followers, she set her sights on becoming the country’s first woman leader. The Christian Democrats are well ahead in the opinion polls at 45 per cent to 30 per cent for the Social Democrats, and the general election called by Herr Schröder is likely to be held as early as September 18.

Germany, and Frau Merkel, could thus set a pattern for change in Europe, with the governments of France, Italy and Poland already under strain. On present polling, Frau Merkel, who has been described as Germany’s Margaret Thatcher, could be not only the first woman Chancellor but also, perhaps more significantly, the first German leader since Konrad Adenauer in the 1950s to rule with an absolute majority.

“We will put forward an agenda for work,” Frau Merkel, 50, said after she was chosen as the official candidate by the executive boards of the Christian Democrats and their sister party, the Bavarian Christian Social Union. The baton was handed on by Edmund Stoiber, the Bavarian Prime Minister, who narrowly lost to the Chancellor in the 2002 election.

The Chancellor, Frau Merkel said, had mounted up record debts, record levels of poverty and record unemployment, which was now hovering around the five-million mark.

Frau Merkel promised that bureaucracy would be cut back and Germany would again become competitive. “We will always be more expensive and we are not going to compete against the low-wage nations but to find our place in the globalised world we will have to be quicker and more flexible.”

A first analysis of Frau Merkel’s budding election programme shows that she would not depart radically from Herr Schröder’s reform course.

But the tone will be harder towards Turkey. Frau Merkel interpreted the French rejection of the European constitution as a secret vote against Turkish entry to the European Union. During the election campaign, she said, she would “begin an honest discussion about Turkish EU membership”.

A checklist of other issues stirring German voters shows that petrol prices would stay high, pensions would remain at their current level and the working week would become longer (40-42 hours). German soldiers would not be sent to Iraq and military service would not be abolished. There would be no war on the trade unions.

Frau Merkel will offer a more pro-business and more pro-US course. It will be easier for small companies to fire, and therefore hire, workers. Corporate taxes will be reduced.

Frau Merkel has little room for manoeuvre, with sluggish growth and the army of unemployed. “But we will do what we can,” she said. “We are . . . ready to take over power.”

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Mandela’s tribe threatens President Zuma
• The French empire strikes back
• Wife of cheating governor exacts a political revenge