Summit between Angela Merkel and George Bush

By Simon Tisdall

Today’s White House summit between Angela Merkel and George Bush will not require an armistice. Tensions between the US president and Ms Merkel’s predecessor as German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, never quite descended to the level of all-out war. But after the most fractious period for US-German ties since 1945, caused principally by Iraq, the meeting does offer both sides the chance of a new beginning which they are likely to seize.

Ms Merkel’s assured performance has confounded her many critics since she took charge of Germany’s "grand coalition" government following an extraordinarily bitter, cliff-hanger autumn election. Making her debut in the Bundestag in November as the country’s first woman chancellor, Ms Merkel admitted she was a bit shell-shocked herself.

"All this has taken us by surprise and some of it has even taken me by surprise," she said. "Having said that, it is not the most surprising thing that has ever happened to me. The greatest surprise of my life is freedom. There were many things I expected would happen but I did not expect to be granted the gift of freedom before I reached retirement. All roads led to a wall ... which looked as if it would divide our country forever."

Ms Merkel’s emphasis on liberty reflected her upbringing in communist East Germany- and was a reminder to Berlin’s political establishment of how far the country has travelled since 1989. But human rights are a present-day priority, too, as her, deliberately timed condemnation this week of the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay showed.

"An institution like Guantánamo cannot and should not be allowed to exist indefinitely. Other ways must be found to deal with these prisoners," Ms Merkel told Der Spiegel magazine.

She was also reportedly forthright in her criticism of Washington’s "extraordinary rendition" practices when she met Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, last month. If Mr Schröder had been so outspoken, there would have been another blazing row. But the Bush administration, keen to mend fences, took it on the chin.

Washington’s wider calculations are not hard to unpick. The US has noted with approval Ms Merkel’s tougher line towards Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which she has criticized for anti-democratic tendencies and its recent energy squeeze on Ukraine. Dropping Mr Schröder’s talk about prioritizing a European defense capability, she has stressed US-led Nato’s political role. Germany has also moved closer to Washington on curbing Iran’s nuclear activities; and Ms Merkel is expected to underscore Germany’s willingness to continue to help in non-military ways with Iraq.

Ms Merkel’s pragmatism also bore dividends at December’s EU summit, when she helped to break the budget stalemate between Britain and France. But her opposition to French proposals for reviving "cherry-picked" elements of the EU’s moribund constitution may foreshadow another subtle shift. Her tacit message to the French president, Jacques Chirac - that "Germany still wants a special relationship with France but it is no longer so central" - was a comforting one for Atlanticists in London and Washington, said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.

But movement has not all been in one direction. Ms Merkel’s arrival has coincided with a more collaborative, multilateralist US approach in the second Bush term, engendered partly by reverses in Iraq and at home and partly by distrust of American policies among Europeans, especially in Germany.

The US needed Germany to resume its traditional role as a dependable ally anchoring and balancing Europe’s conflicting forces, Ms Stelzenmüller suggested. "Merkel has certainly brought a new tone to German policy. It is measured, detached, cautious - not so charismatic as before, but more predictable."