Allan Hall: Germany in strong position but Angela Merkel on shaky ground

GERMANY'S economy is powering ahead while Britain and other countries flounder for a way out of the recession. Consumers are spending again, companies' order books are full and the statisticians gloat that never before have so many Germans been in work as now.

An outsider may be forgiven for thinking that the leader of this land would be basking in the rosy glow of such fortune. Yet Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Mrs Thatcher-Lite of the Fatherland, is more unpopular than she has ever been.

Her CDU conservative party faces seven regional elections this year that 12 months ago should have been shoo-ins. Now none of them are secure.

Germans distrust, even loathe, her for a variety of reasons that all add up to her being in the strangest position of any western European leader, perhaps any leader in the world.

If there was one single incident that could be said to have triggered the popularity implosion of Ms Merkel, it was the Greek crisis last year. She delayed, she dallied and finally she broke the news that, yes, Germany would have to bail out those wretches down south who knew nothing of the Teuton work ethic but everything about spending.

Her missed Churchillian moment in the gathering euro storm led former foreign minister Joschka Fischer to declare: "I can't remember a similarly disastrous set of actions since 1949. Angela Merkel had her rendezvous with history. Unlike Helmut Kohl on 2 November, 1989, or Gerhard Schroeder after 11 September, 2001, Merkel blew it."

The calendar of mis-steps began at the start of the year with the announcement of an €80 billion austerity programme. Germans, who hold their welfare state dear, felt they were being punished for the sins of the bankers.

Later, she tried to halt French plans to establish an EU fund to aid Greece. As its credit worsened, she fuelled the perception that she would rather kick indebted countries out of the single currency zone than offer hard-earned German money to spendthrift states.

At the end of April, members of Ms Merkel's party were still telling the press that Greece "must seriously consider leaving the eurozone". It was also clear she was hoping her tough, populist stance would help her party win an important regional election on 2 May.

In the end Germans had to pay up for Greece. Now the government is trailing the opposition Social Democrats and Greens in the polls, and the chancellor's popularity has fallen with it. If an election were held tomorrow she would lose.