[bboygravity]

Feel free to accuse the Germans. Russian bribes is basically why they have some of the most expensive energy in the world now. They're surprisingly corrupt for a "developed" "high tech" nation.

Search Gerhard Schroder for more info.

[jacquesm]

And Merkel, just as much as Schroeder.

[kakacik]

Merkel was the worst european politician by a lightyear (or two). Maybe growing up in East Germany affected her negatively, don't know but these days she is a huge (and publicly outspoken) putin and russia apologist. Looking at history of her political moves, she was actually the same before, there just wasn't such an obvious war against whole Europe so it all could be labeled as 'low cost gas and oil is good', probably mixed with typical german 'we must atone for the sins of our grandparents' backwhipping.

Current russian war in Ukraine is also her doing. Making german military a joke, sending tens if not hundreds of billions euros to russia. She still admits no mistakes at all, despite being very actively hated across whole eastern part of EU. When asked directly about any of this she just goes into her fairy tale mental space not anchored in reality.

Overall she did a lot of long term harm. I don't believe she is evil at the core, just severely delusional, easy to manipulate and overall a bad, very bad leader. Wake me up when regular germans realize what rest of EU grokked a decade ago.

[jacquesm]

The fact that she gets a pass from lots of people is somewhat confusing to me. Clearly she is a major cause, whether through incompetence or malice isn't really all that important, though her most recent utterances make me now lean towards 'malice' more than 'incompetence' when before it was the latter (and a dose of hope that this time around it will be different).