Angela Merkel likes to cook potato soup and make plum cake. These are typical German autumn dishes, but this autumn they will hardly have time to cook much.
Parliamentary elections will be held in less than a month (September 26), but for Merkel, her political career will not be over in the evening of that Sunday, after the first results are announced.
She remains in the Chancellor's Office, and continues to manage affairs until the formation of a new cabinet.
On average, over the past several decades, the federal chancellor (or female chancellor) with the new cabinet in the Bundestag was sworn in five to six weeks after the election. But last time (after the 2017 elections), Germany waited five and a half months for a new government.
It is thus possible that Angela Merkel will overtake her political mentor Helmut Kohl, who is still the longest-serving post-war chancellor.
Cole's chancellor career ended in 1998, after 5.870 days in office.
Merkel would break that record if she remained in office until December 17 of this year.
Books, little sleep…
In July, during a visit to Washington, Merkel was asked how she envisions her retirement days.
She usually doesn't want to answer that question, but in the US she hinted that she would first rest and not accept any calls.
First, she will have to realize that her duties will now be performed by someone else, Merkel said. And immediately added, "I think I'm going to like it a lot."
With plenty of free time, Merkel says she wants to think about what "really interests her".
As she says, she hasn't had much time to think about that issue in the past 16 years.
With a cheeky smile, the chancellor then, at the ceremony where she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, also added: "And after that, maybe I'll try to read a little, and then my eyelids will droop from fatigue, then I'll take a nap ."
A photo artist and a crime writer have already looked into the future.
Andreas Mihe took pictures of his own mother as a double of the German chancellor in solitude, in complete silence, and made an exhibition out of those photos.
Crime author David Zafije, on the other hand, assumes that Merkel will quickly start to get bored when her calendar is no longer full of obligations.
In the humorous crime film "Miss Merkel", the chancellor moves to a cottage in Brandenburg after her mandate, and struggles with life in the countryside.
Life with baking cakes? And just like the British crime stories about "Miss Marple", written by Agatha Christie, Merkel stumbles upon a death case and zealously begins to investigate the circumstances...
A secure pension
It is a humorous book, but one whose key question is justified. Can a person who has had obligations and such a great responsibility for decades from early morning to late evening suddenly "turn off"?
"What someone lacks is only noticed when it is no longer there," Merkel said on the subject recently in Berlin.
Merkel celebrated her 67th birthday in July, which is retirement time anyway. Unlike many retirees in Germany, Merkel will have no financial worries.
As chancellor, she earns 25.000 euros per month, and receives more than ten thousand for her mandate as a member of parliament.
When he stops working, he will first receive his full salary for three months, and then half of that amount for a maximum of 21 months.
As for the amount of the pension, the competent services will take into account various activities - as chancellors, former ministers, MPs. That long tenure in politics should provide her with an excellent pension of fifteen thousand euros per month.
In addition, he has the right to an official vehicle (with a driver) and personal security for the rest of his life. In the premises of the Bundestag, they will get an office, and taxpayers will finance the head of that office, two employees and one assistant position. It is a tradition in Germany, what former heads of government are legally entitled to.
A new career?
Former members of the government are bound by law to exercise discretion. But even if they are not allowed to talk about confidential matters around, they are very welcome in corporations. For example as advisers, and because of great political contacts.
Some of Angela Merkel's predecessors moved to a free economy.
Helmut Schmidt became the publisher of the weekly Cajt in 1982, and was also a very popular speaker. In an interview he said, "I had a rule that I would not do any show for less than $15.000."
Former chancellors Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroeder demonstrated how to earn even better.
They literally gilded the political past and glory - Kol founded a firm that dealt with lobbying and strategic consulting. And he was making great money.
Schröder, just a few months after losing to Merkel in 2005, found himself on the payroll of the Russian Nord Stream project, as a subsidiary of Gazprom. With that, he drew the ire of many critics - Schröder, in fact, as chancellor advocated for the construction of that gas pipeline.
In the meantime, it is legally regulated that former members of the government must first ask the Chancellery in Berlin whether their new activity will "jeopardize the public interest" before "transferring" to economic affairs.
The government is advised on this issue by the ethics commission, which can also propose a "transitional period" lasting up to 18 months. So, only a year and a half after leaving political office, the transfer is officially carried out.
Is Angela Merkel planning to take on a new job? Or some honorary, volunteer duty? So far she has not said anything about it.
He will probably stay in Berlin for some time.
Her husband, quantum mechanics professor Joachim Sauer is not thinking about retirement yet. At Berlin's Humboldt University, he has the status of professor emeritus, but the 72-year-old has extended his contract as a senior researcher.
But only until 2022.
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