[Quest:] Welcome back to Berlin. Angela Merkel says she is still searching to find what more can be done to settle and solve the eurozone problems. Now, the ESFS has been downgraded, the question will be whether the German government has to stump up more money so that the fund can get back its Triple-A rating. There have been calls for her to show greater solidarity with Europe. What is quite clear, Angela Merkel is probably now, the single most important politician in Europe, and so much of the continent's future economic success relies on the views that she has, as our correspondent in Berlin, Diana Magnay, now explains.
[Magnay:] As the Michelin starred chefs get ready for another night in Berlin's hottest new pop-up dining experience, Pret a Diner, over by the bar, a face gazes heavenward with sacral serenity, seeking divine guidance, perhaps, on monetary matters. Recognize the German chancellor? Her third eye, the same symbol you'll find on the US dollar bill, fitting as she's gracing the walls of Berlin's old mint. Olivia Steele runs Pret a Diner and commissioned Portuguese street artist Vhils to create the project's signature piece in Berlin.
[Olivia Steele, Creative Director, Pret A Diner:] Coming from Portugal, he's not very fond of her. We had this discussion, and he asked if he could do his interpretation of her, which was half Angela, half skull.
[Magnay:] And you said no.
[Steele:] No. Not in Germany.
[Magnay:] That's because whatever the feeling in Europe's south, many Germans not naturally predisposed to her party's social conservatism are giving Frau Merkel the thumbs up. Like curator Johann von Lanzenauer, also involved in the Pret a Diner concept.
[Johann Haehling Von Lanzenauer, Circle Culture Gallery:] I have a lot of respect for her work, and for her attitude, especially at first to be a woman, to go so far and with so much strength. I think she's a very sustainable politician, as she is like her research person from her former profession.
[Magnay:] So, who is the woman who's calling the shots in Europe, the stronger half of the Merkel-Sarkozy power duo, at least the one with most of the cash. Her actual other half, chemistry professor Joachim Sauer, shows up rarely. She's said she likes to make him breakfast in the mornings in the modest home they chose over the chancellor's official residence. Simple, unpretentious, and fiercely bright, say journalists who've traveled with Mrs. Merkel on foreign trips.
[Andreas Theyssen, "financial Times Deutschland":] She's thinking in long terms, that's the reason why she, in current affairs, she's very often keeping quiet. She doesn't say anything when everybody's expecting her to say something, but she first wants to see what could be the outcome of a process.
[Angela Merkel, Chancellor Of Germany:] Today, you can trust me to do everything in my power to strengthen the euro.
[Magnay:] And it seems that most Germans do. In the latest poll from German broadcaster ZDF, 66 percent of Germans felt she was doing a good job in the euro crisis, up from 45 percent in October last year.
[Unidentified Male:] Just one word to describe her qualities? Consequence. Brilliant.
[Magnay:] Yes?
[Unidentified Male:] Yes.
[Magnay:] "So, I would just like to say that Mrs. Merkel is OK," this woman stops to say.
[Theyssen:] She wants to give them the impression "I'm not like Helmut Kohl did, I'm not giving away money to Europe without any reason. I'm saving German money, but only when they are doing their job, then we give them our money."
[Magnay:] A committed European, but not at any price. Santa Angela to the Germans, perhaps. Maybe more like a punishing angel to the rest. Diana Magnay, CNN, Berlin.
[Quest:] Diana joins me now to talk about this and to put it into some wider perspective. The question not only of what Mrs. Merkel does outside Germany, but also what she does inside Germany. She was very unpopular at one stage.
[Magnay:] Well, exactly. I think the public, the electorate is always fickle, and last year, she was a lot less popular than she is now. People haven't been particularly impressed by what she's doing domestically, and it really has been the euro crisis and her handling of it and people's feeling that she is defending Germany's interests and the German taxpayer against a Europe who doesn't feel good about her. She's working in their favor, basically.
[Quest:] Is there nobody here who, though, puts the other point of view that suggests actually she might be driving the bus over the cliff.
[Magnay:] The kind of point of view that Standard and Poor's just put out there that her policies are exactly the root of the problem. Sure, there are.
[Quest:] There's a lot of people out there who do say the austerity in German the austerity being imposed, more people on countries like Greece, is actually the wrong way to actually get the crisis solved.
[Magnay:] Which is why you're now seeing Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy at their last press conference start to talk about growth. But you do wonder whether they're just beginning to pay lip service to it, whether this is something that they it's new rhetoric, basically, all this growth talk.
[Quest:] Toward me to what we might expect to hear her say when she opens the speech opens at the world economic forum on next Wednesday. She's going to be giving the keynote speech. She's got to set out an agenda of why the eurozone is not a lost cause.
[Magnay:] She's got to try and restore confidence from investors worldwide, say, "We do have the situation under control." So, she's going to be talking about this fiscal pact that they have to have sealed, essentially, after Daraa. She's going to be talking about the fact that hopefully by that time they will have secured some kind of deal on Greece. Those are the two big factors that she's got to make sure that she's got nailed.
[Quest:] If there was an election tomorrow, would she win?
[Magnay:] Right now, she'd be looking good, yes.
[Quest:] Which is extraordinary, bearing in mind from where she came. Diana, many thanks, indeed, for joining us. Diana Magnay here in Berlin with me. If you can hear the wind blowing, I assure you, it's very windy and rainy here in Berlin tonight, a bit like the economy in the rest of the eurozone. More QUEST MEANS BUSINESS after the break.