Chancellor Angela Merkel will soon have an extra 930 euros ($1,182) in her pocket each month after Germany’s cabinet awarded themselves their first pay rise in 12 years. The salaries of Merkel and her ministers will rise by 5.7 percent in three stages until August 2013. The chancellor’s total pay will then be around 17,016 euros per month, before tax. Ministers’ pay will rise by 750 euros to around 13,795. Merkel, recently named the world’s most powerful woman by Forbes Magazine, is famously down-to-earth, snapped earlier this month shopping on her own for groceries. She has been the chief advocate of austerity in the eurozone during the debt crisis, earning her criticism from some quarters, notably Greece and more recently France, whose new leader Francois Hollande wants to focus on growth.
