Time ranks Olaf Scholz among 100 most influential people

Time magazine on Friday published its list of most influential people, including among them German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Scholz is listed in the category of most prominent leaders, with a particular focus on Germany's policies in responding to Russia's war of invasion against Ukraine.

Focus Ukraine 'Zeitenwende'

"When Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared the Russian invasion of Ukraine a Zeitenwende — an epochal turning point — he pledged that Germany would rise to the occasion," the magazine said. "Though Berlin's response hasn't always been as quick as many of its allies would like, Scholz has begun to deliver."

The magazine noted that Germany had overturned a postwar policy of pacifism, boosting military spending and becoming one of Kyiv's biggest arms suppliers. It noted that, under Scholz, Germany had ended its reliance on Russian energy and delivered much-needed Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine.

Time addressed criticism of Scholz for dragging his feet on the deployment of heavy weapons, putting it into historic context.

"Delays that critics regard as needless hesitation are seen by others as due caution in a nation still scarred by its own history of wartime aggression," the magazine wrote.

BioNTech founders also listed

Among the other leadership figures featured were Joe Biden and Olena Zelenska, wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who was Time's 2022 Person of the Year.

Among the other categories in the list — published in no particular order of prominence — were artists, pioneers, titans, and innovators.

Also included were Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin, the German couple from Turkish immigrant families who founded BioNTech — the company that developed one of the first widely approved coronavirus vaccines.

It noted that the pair, who partnered with pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for that project, had since turned their attention to immunotherapy cancer vaccines now at the clinical trial stage in Britain.

"Through it all, even as their stake in BioNTech made them billionaires, they still enjoy riding their old bicycles to spend time working in their lab," the magazine wrote.

Edited by: Mark Hallam