BERLIN, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Domestic security, the fight against terrorism and the leadership roles at the Group of Eight and the European Union marked Germany's high-profile 2007.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel managed to significantly raise her profile when she successfully presided over the EU and the G8 presidencies. She pushed through ambitious EU climate-protection goals in March and in June hosted a successful G8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm, with the world's most powerful leaders committing themselves to join the EU's struggle against global warming.

The G8 summit also was the event that posed the greatest security challenge Germany had to shoulder this year: Berlin deployed more than 16,000 police and 1,100 military troops to the summit area and constructed a 7.5-mile, 8-foot security fence around the 19th century spa resort. The measures cost $150 million, making the G8 in Heiligendamm the most expensive and most heavily secured single-venue event in Germany's history. More than 100,000 protesters from all over the world kept riot police on high alert before and during the event.

The months before the summit had also seen several firebombing attacks by far left-wing groups classified by the German government as terrorist groups.

The country in 2007 also experienced the 30th anniversary of one of its darkest periods, the so-called "German autumn," a time when the left-wing terrorist group Red Army Faction launched a wave of violence and fear with high-profile kidnappings and murders of influential German political and industrial leaders. The anniversary of the German autumn coincided with the release and pardon requests of several of those former terrorists, which kept the media coverage ongoing for several months.