Chancellor Angela Merkel’s New Year’s speeches have typically been aspirational exercises in political agenda setting, touching on dozens of broad themes like immigration and climate change, and sometimes presenting her latest projects for Germany. But Ms. Merkel’s speech this year, her 16th as chancellor, is noticeably different. For what is almost certainly her last New Year’s Eve speech as the government’s leader, as she is expected to leave office in 2021, she focuses on a single topic: the coronavirus. “The coronavirus pandemic was and is a once-in-a-century political, social and economic challenge,” Ms. Merkel says in the annual prerecorded televised speech that is watched by millions of German households. And even if generous government subsidies have averted much of the widespread economic pain that other countries have experienced, long-term economic consequences loom for the nation.

Source: New York Times December 31, 2020 13:15 UTC