German chancellor Angela Merkel has been named TIME’s Person of the Year.
The magazine says Merkel’s leadership during this year’s Syrian refugee crisis qualified her for the award.
Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs said Merkel’s guidance during the threat of Greek bankruptcy, Russia’s advance on Ukraine and the attacks on Paris was impressive.
“Each time Merkel stepped in,” Ms Gibbs said, in her editorial, “The Chancellor is asking a great deal of the German people, and by their example, the rest of us as well.”
“To be welcoming. To be unafraid. To believe that great civilizations build bridges, not walls, and that wars are won both on and off the battlefield.”
The magazine noted that Merkel’s political style ‘was not to have one: no flair, no flourishes, no charisma, just a survivor’s sharp sense of power and a scientist’s devotion to data.’
‘Even after Merkel became Germany’s Chancellor in 2005, and then commanded the world’s fourth largest economy, she remained resolutely dull — the better to be underestimated time and again,’ the magazine says.
Ms Merkel is the first woman to take the honor since 1986.
