Merkel ready to call time: A champion of real EU values

German chancellor Angela Merkel may not be a perfect political leader — does such a paradigm exist?— but she is the most powerful, the most important woman in Europe.

Her announcement yesterday that she would not seek re-election as party chairwoman and that her fourth term as chancellor would be her last signals the end of a 13-year period in which she dominated European politics — and very much for the better despite all the obvious caveats.

Her record is far from perfect, especially on climate change.

It is a pity that she did not push for greater reform in this area.

That she did not, unfortunately, encouraged duck-and-dive governments like ours to long-finger carbon cuts.

It is hard to think of a European leader who might have been as successful as she could have been in this area.

It is also hard to imagine a successor who might achieve such sway within the timeframe needed to confront this crisis.

It is impossible to think of a contemporary European leader that so embodied the positive, peace-sustaining elements of the European project.

It is also impossible to imagine a new European leader promoting such a challenging policy on immigration.

She must have known that she would, as she did, pay a price for opening Germany to refugees.

That she is the very antithesis of Brexit confirms that she understood the core objectives of the EU in a way many did not.

Hopefully, her successor will.