Angela Merkel greatest leader in Europe, says Hillary Clinton

Former secretary of state says US ready for female leader and she will decide on presidential run by early next year

theguardian.com, Reuters in Berlin, Sunday 6 July 2014

Hillary Clinton in Berlin. Photograph: Oliver Lang/AFP/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton has called Angela Merkel "the greatest leader in Europe" during a visit to Berlin and said it was high time America had a female leader too – though without confirming that she would seek the job.

In an appearance at a Berlin theatre on Sunday to promote her book Hard Choices, the former US secretary of state also referred to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, as a "tough customer with a pretty thin skin".

Clinton is widely expected to run for the White House in 2016 and has cited Merkel, the German chancellor, as a good argument for the US having a female president soon.

"I think we are ready for a woman to break through the glass ceiling," Clinton said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper, adding that she would decide whether to run for president "at the end of this year or early next year".

Clinton joked at the Schiller Theatre about her and Merkel's shared taste for trouser suits, and voiced admiration for the chancellor's leadership during the eurozone debt crisis.

"I say in the book I think she is the greatest leader in Europe, I think she is a great leader globally, I think she carried Europe on her shoulders and it wasn't easy," she said.

Watch a recent Guardian interview with Hillary Clinton

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