Even when there\u2019s a mutual will for a UK-German kiss and make-up, the way to it is harder to chart <\/p>\n
In the end he made it home: Germany\u2019s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived by a squeak in the top job by a margin of nine votes<\/a>, having failed in the first round of voting to clear the 50 per cent hurdle in the Bundestag (Parliament) for his confirmation. This is the \u201cChancellor vote\u201d which has waved through every government since the Federal Republic\u2019s establishment in 1949.<\/p>\n The Christian Democrat leader\u2019s flailing arrival came after hours of arm-twisting and favour-banking were needed to turn a six vote deficit in the morning to a narrow endorsement in the afternoon, which had one of his allies sending me a picture of a sweating emoticon and a handkerchief. But a day of high drama in Berlin has reminded us that the days of envy for Germany\u2019s staidly stable politics have passed \u2013 it\u2019s rock and roll in Berlin now, as it is across much of Europe.<\/p>\n The end of those settled norms will have consequences as the UK tries to rebuild ties to Berlin when the political weather is as choppy, and a new government is having similar woes establishing authority over a challenger party on the right<\/a> and its effects on authority at the centre.<\/p>\n In theory, Merz should be a better Chancellor for the UK than his wan predecessor Olaf Scholz, who did not seek a large footprint on the international stage, but at least liked Starmer and prepared the route to a reconciliation. Things had really fallen apart pre-Brexit: Angela Merkel had an intellectual default scepticism bordering on superiority complex towards the Anglosphere \u2013 and was more at home finessing negotiations on the continent or dealings with Russia than trying to understand or help fractious Britons.<\/p>\n Merz is more cosmopolitan than both \u2013 he speaks excellent English, and as a former Goldman\u2019s lawyer, knows the City of London well. He is also more pragmatic about mutual interest than the more hectoring end of German officialdom whose appetite for carping about Brexit is wearing \u2013 and not always self-aware, given the greater threat posed by extreme-right thinking in Germany.<\/p>\n The exam question now is how far a leader whose first steps have been faltering will turn quickly inwards \u2013 notwithstanding a grand plan for an EU \u201creset\u201d summit in which Germany will play a leading role. That is the job of another German \u2013 Ursula von der Leyens, as head of the EU Commission \u2013 to negotiate, after Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have expended much diplomatic energy to back a plan.<\/p>\n But there is little time to fix outstanding details of the deal on food standards, fisheries and youth mobility, and with domestic worries dominating, even a much-heralded visit to Kyiv has not had its dates confirmed. Von der Leyen can do the technical wrangling, but a durable arrangement needs London and Berlin to signal a more hearty reconnection. <\/p>\n Domestic politics is intruding for both. Merz needs to make his mark, rebooting Germany\u2019s sagging reputation as an industrial giant, built on a suspicious and clearly fragile coalition with the defeated Social Democrats.<\/p>\n It has not helped that a report by the domestic intelligence agency declaring<\/a> the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland \u201cextreme\u201d and \u201cracist\u201d was published days before the Chancellor\u2019s first test. The AfD is now the second largest party in parliament and can use its vote bank to add to the discomfiture of the ruling coalitions, while being decreed as beyond the democratic pale means that mainstream parties can\u2019t be seen to horse-trade with it \u2013 and will reap ire from opponents in the centre and among Social Democrats when they come close to doing so.<\/p>\n