German leader Angela Merkel ‘to run for 4th term in 2017’

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has ruled Germany since 2005, has decided to run for a fourth term and has started planning her 2017 re-election campaign, according to Der Spiegel news magazine. Merkel, who turned 61 on July 17, has not made any public comments about whether she would run for a fourth term, although she did hint in a speech in Cologne last year she would stand again. Merkel, who has guided Europe’s biggest economy through the 2008 financial crisis and euro zone turmoil, regularly ranks as one of Germany’s most popular leaders, which is unusual for a sitting chancellor. There was no official comment from her office on the speculation.

As a result of that meeting, the first staff workers are being recruited.

Der Spiegel, suggesting plans for another term are underway

Der Spiegel said she held a strategy meeting recently with CDU general secretary Peter Tauber, its campaign manager, and party manager Klaus Schueler to discuss the campaign. There are no term limits in Germany and the last CDU chancellor, Helmut Kohl, ruled for 16 years before losing his bid for a fifth term in 1998 to Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democrats (SPD). Neither were as popular among voters as Merkel.

She’s doing an excellent job.

Schleswig-Holstein state premier Torsten Albig