German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s body shook visibly at a public event for the third time in less than a month on Wednesday, but the leader insisted that there is nothing to worry about.
Mrs Merkel shook as she stood at a military honours ceremony alongside Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne in Berlin, listening to the two countries’ national anthems.
As in both those cases, the incident started as she stood still without talking, and the 64-year-old recovered quickly as she started walking.
The first incident happened in near-identical circumstances as she stood alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at a military honours ceremony. The weather that day was hot, and Mrs Merkel said afterwards that she was fine after drinking three glasses of water.
The second incident happened at the German president’s palace as she listened to his comments on the swearing-in of a new justice minister. Temperatures were much cooler that day, as they were on Wednesday.
“I am fine,” she told reporters after her meeting with Mr Rinne. “I said recently that I am in a phase of processing the last military honours with President Zelenskiy. That is clearly not entirely complete, but there is progress.”
She added: “I will have to live with it for a while now, but I am very well and people don’t have to be worried.”
The health of public figures is generally regarded as a private matter in Germany and the country’s privacy laws are very strict on that type of information. It is not publicly known if Mrs Merkel has any health problems.
The Chancellor has a reputation for stamina garnered in years of late-night domestic and European negotiating marathons.
She has rarely had to cut back her work schedule significantly, though she did so for a few weeks in 2014 when she cracked her pelvis while cross-country skiing in Switzerland during a winter holiday.
“My comments on this are done today, and I think my statement that I am fine can find acceptance,” she said. “I said that I have to process this event and that I am in this process, and I think that just as it came, it will go away one day.”
She added: “I am very firmly convinced that I am entirely capable of performing.”
