Chancellor Angela Merkel thought long and hard about whether to run for office again in Germany’s 2017 parliamentary election. She has made the right choice in standing for a fourth term, despite the dangers of staying in power too long that have plagued many long-serving leaders, not least her mentor, Helmut Kohl.

With Donald Trump moving into the White House, Ms Merkel has faced calls to assume the mantle of leader of the western liberal world from Barack Obama. She dismisses the demands as “grotesque and absurd,” but she may not have much choice in the matter. The job is thrust upon her by the lack of another plausible candidate and the admirable positions she has staked out. She has pledged to fight for democracy, free trade and open societies, and has refused to leave the field to nationalists, whether Mr Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

It is certainly a moment in history when a German chancellor assumes this role. Seven decades after the destruction of Nazi Germany, Berlin is once more in a position to contemplate global leadership, albeit cautiously. This is a tribute to the country’s transformation since 1945, to its ranking as an economic superpower, and its primacy in the European Union.