Controversy over president threatens to engulf Merkel

CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel returns from a two-week break to the front line of the debt crisis amid a clamour over the conduct of Germany’s president that threatens to damage her own standing and detract from her efforts to defend the euro.

Merkel, whose last official engagement was on December 20, will resume her duties in two days with the spotlight on President Christian Wulff over a loan from a friend’s wife to buy a house and vacations at the homes of business people.

Scrutiny of the mainly ceremonial president intensified after Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling newspaper, said that the president had attempted to stop the editor from publishing the loan story last month.