Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned against rising protectionism and urged support for a multilateral world order, saying democracies cannot be taken for granted and nations must defend the rule of law.
Delivering the inaugural Dr Manmohan Singh Memorial Lecture, Merkel criticized US tariff policies for disrupting the global economic order, condemned Russian aggression against Ukraine for violating sovereignty, and warned that social media and AI make it harder to distinguish truth from falsehood. “The world order has been shaken,” she said.
Recalling a decade-long association with Manmohan Singh, Merkel described the late prime minister as a staunch multilateralist who believed inclusive growth was essential for global peace and security. “In these times of protectionist trade, Manmohan Singh’s warnings can guide the world,” she said, calling him a special person with a “natural authority that was not intimidating.”
Her remarks were delivered before a distinguished audience including Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Gursharan Kaur, Upinder Singh and Daman Singh (who conducted the evening), former Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra, and former ministers P. Chidambaram, Ashwani Kumar and Salman Khurshid.
Merkel praised India’s sustained annual growth above 5 percent and called Indian economic potential “inexhaustible,” crediting Manmohan Singh’s 1991 liberalisation as a foundation for decades of uninterrupted growth. She highlighted two major legislations from his premiership—MNREGA and the Right to Education Act—and said his defining contribution as finance minister was opening India’s markets to the world.
On global challenges, Merkel said the right of territorial integrity had been ignored in Ukraine and warned that multilateralism was under strain as the US weakens international organisations and questions the UN and UNSC as forums for resolving conflicts. “The order of cooperation we have known so far now stands replaced with ‘might means right’,” she said.
Speaking in German with simultaneous translation, Merkel stressed that democracies must actively resist hatred and incitement and commit to multilateral cooperation, because no single country can solve global problems alone. She lamented the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.
A strong advocate for regulating AI and social media, Merkel warned that without regulation “multilateralism will ossify.” Noting resistance from major tech powers, she argued that politicians can and should regulate social media as they have regulated chemicals and atomic energy, to protect citizens rather than defer to industry. In conversation with former foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, she added that AI is the first technology humanity struggles to regulate.
Merkel also recalled Manmohan Singh’s 2005 address to the US Congress, quoting his point that the real test of democracy is how it functions in practice, not just what is written in constitutions. She said her conversations with Singh taught her much about other nations.
