Brussels, Belgium: European leaders heaped praise on German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday as she participated in her last EU summit after a 16-year reign heavily influencing the bloc through major ups and downs.
Merkel has attended a staggering 107 EU summits that saw some of the biggest twists in recent European history, including the eurozone debt crisis, an inflow of Syrian refugees, Brexit and the creation of the bloc’s landmark pandemic recovery fund.
“You are a monument,” the host of the summits, European Council chief Charles Michel, said in the closed-door homage to her, according to an official in the room.
An EU summit “without Angela is like Rome without the Vatican or Paris without the Eiffel tower,” Michel said after Merkel’s 26 counterparts gave her a standing ovation.
He handed Merkel what was described as an “artistic impression” of the Europa building, a contemporary glass-topped cube where summits are hosted.
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel called Merkel a “compromise machine” who “usually did find something to unite us” through marathon intra-EU negotiations.
“Europe will miss her,” he said.
“She is someone who for 16 years has really left her mark on Europe, helping all 27 of us to take the right decisions with a lot of humanity at times that were difficult,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said he hoped Merkel, a “great politician”, would remain on the political scene “in one form or another”.
Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg called her “undoubtedly a great European” and “a haven of peace, if you like, within the European Union”.
Her departure, he said, “will leave a hole”.
