FILE - In this April 30, 1991 file photo then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl background looks on with Women and Youth Minister Angela Merkel, prior to a cabinet meeting in the Bonn Chancellery. Few people would have expected Merkel to become a long-lasting leader after she barely won Germany’s 2005 election. Merkel is the first woman and the first person who grew up in communist East Germany to serve as chancellor. She was a spokeswoman for East Germany's first and only democratically elected leader before being thrust into Chancellor Helmut Kohl's first post-reunification Cabinet as minister for families. (AP Photo/Fritz Reiss, file)