Merkel cancels visits after ski accident
Print Edition
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was injured in a fall while cross-country skiing in Switzerland forcing her to stay off her feet and cancel meetings, her spokesman said yesterday, just as her new government got down to business.
Taking reporters by surprise, Steffen Seibert said that Merkel, 59, had canceled two meetings with international leaders this week and also cut back her schedule for the next three weeks while she recovers.
The chancellor suffered a fractured pelvis which “makes it necessary for her to lie down a lot for three weeks and/or use a walking aid,” Seibert said.
“She, therefore during this time, will concentrate on a few appointments at the chancellery and in Berlin and otherwise do her work at home,” he said, stressing that this did not mean she would be out of touch.
“It goes without saying that as chancellor, she is at work and both capable of acting as well as communicating fully,” Seibert said.
Merkel will lead tomorrow’s cabinet meeting, the first of 2014 for her new “grand coalition” government, he said.
But she has had to cancel a planned trip to Warsaw tomorrow, as well as a visit to Berlin by Luxembourg’s new prime minister been scheduled for Thursday, Seibert said.
Merkel planned to speak yesterday by phone with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel to personally once again convey the reasons for the cancellation, he said.
Forgoing Davos
However, Merkel would not be returning to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in the plush ski resort of Davos later this month, but not due to her accident. The decision to forgo this year’s annual meeting had been taken beforehand, Seibert said.
News of the Merkel’s fall comes as her compatriot Formula One legend Michael Schumacher remains in a critical condition in a French hospital after a very serious skiing accident in the French Alps on December 29.
The chancellor was cross-country skiing in the southeastern Swiss region of Engadin, which boasts top ski resorts such as St Moritz, over the Christmas holidays when she had her accident.
The injury was initially thought to be painful bruising, but after her return to Berlin, doctors on Friday diagnosed a fracture, Seibert said.
Merkel was sworn in for a third term on December 17 following her conservatives’ resounding victory in September elections.
She had to seek a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats after her previous junior partners, the Free Democrats, failed to win parliamentary seats.
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