BRUSSELS — As Angela Merkel savored the results of Germany’s national elections, newspapers on the left and right in Greece on Monday gave the same mournful assessment of what the result means beyond German borders. “Victory for the Queen of Austerity,” declared the front page of Ta Nea, a center-left daily. “Merkel victory atop the ruins of the South,” said the conservative Dimokratia.
Bloggers, meanwhile, posted a cartoon that showed Ms. Merkel, a stethoscope around her neck, wagging her finger at a skeleton slumped in a blue chair and ordering, “Exercise, exercise, exercise to strengthen your muscles.”
For months now, Europe has been waiting for the end of a German election campaign that, while focused almost entirely on domestic issues, stirred furtive hope among those outside Germany that, if re-elected to a third term, Ms. Merkel, despite having given no indication, would try a more energetic, and perhaps more economically stimulative, approach to leading Europe out of its extended slump. The waiting has now ended — and so, too, has any hint of a new approach.