Angela Merkel is no German Maggie Thatcher. That's not something one has to complain about, but it's important to know. Surprisingly, Angela Merkel has so far not even reached the standing of a female version of Gerhard Schröder. Her predecessor was made of stern stuff when it came to getting the public and his nostalgic party to do what he thought was right. At his best he was well-informed, forceful and effective, even putting his political fate on the line when it came to realizing his reform ambitions.

His Agenda 2010 program of welfare cuts and labor reforms put Germany on a course from which light-footed Angela Merkel has now veered off. Her small steps won't modernize the country. Quite the contrary. They are even leading away from Angela Merkel. She is betraying herself by trying to swap conviction for popularity.

The planned wave of tax hikes and contribution increases has nothing to do with her election manifesto pledges. It has nothing to do with what Germany really needs. The additional billions of euros in revenue won't help anything new flourish, it will just seep away into the old system.

What's more, the welfare net is even being expanded. Increased benefits for the long-term unemployed in eastern Germany and generous payments for new parents are nourishing the individual's claim on society, a claim Merkel originally wanted to curtail for good reason. She is trying to prolong the illusion of sustainable prosperity, a notion Schröder himself had exposed as impossible without radical change.

The fact that the Social Democrat party without Schröder is following her willingly, and even encouraging her at times, doesn't lessen Merkel's responsibility for what's happening, it increases it.

It's Merkel's task to continue the reforms, to speed them up and deepen them. Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of postwar West Germany, embedded the country into the west, Willy Brandt, the first Social Democrat chancellor, opened Germany to the east. It's Merkel's historic mission to reform the welfare state and cut mass unemployment. There's no point trying to evade the enormity of this task by negating it. In the end, Merkel will be chancellor of reform or she won't be chancellor at all.

Her "breakthrough in health policy"  announced at the weekend is a breakthrough in the wrong direction. German labor, already struggling to compete in an international price war, will be made even more expensive rather than cheaper. The stranglehold the welfare system has on paid employment is being tightened, not loosened. And bureaucracy faces a boom through the creation of a new health fund authority to oversee a new system of health contributions.

It's the job of the media to describe reality. The chancellor's job is to effect change, improve opportunities for prosperity and minimize future risks. And to lead the country, sometimes into areas where no one has ventured before.

Angela Merkel isn't delivering this kind of leadership at the moment. She laughs, she listens, she analyses, she tests the public mood and weighs words, chooses this pose or that. But politics, and this applies to her as it did to Schröder, isn't the continuation of acting skills by other means.

Angela Merkel strode to the heart of power with seven-league boots and now that she's got the job she's started to tip-toe. If she doesn't increase her speed she'll only make it to Tom Thumb's cemetery.