Merkel Queen of Europe – not Cameron’s auntie…

Chancellor Merkel abandoned the crutches her team had thought she’d be using today. For a moment or two speaking in parliament to peers and MPs, she abandoned her mother tongue.

She wanted to make it abundantly clear that she was not going to deliver a bespoke speech to suit the hardest Euro-sceptic forces breathing down David Cameron’s neck. Then Chancellor Merkel reverted to German.

She praised Britain’s role in Europe. She spoke to “limited, targeted and swift” change in Europe, which sounded much more like the “treaty modification” that gets talked about in Berlin than the bumper re-think David Cameron was proposing in January 2013 in his Bloomberg speech.

At the press conference in No. 10, I asked Chancellor Merkel if she would give David Cameron a categorical guarantee that he would get the renegotiation completed by 2017 and ready in treaty form to put to the British electorate that year.

She said that EU agreements need all 28 countries to sign up but “a lot of hot potatoes have been dealt with” even within the confines of this approach. It was classic Merkel: leaving open the possibility of a solution, giving away virtually nothing.

What was also interesting was the death stare I got when I asked her if it was true she looked upon David Cameron as a “naughty nephew” as No. 10 sources have suggested. She didn’t engage with the idea and David Cameron appeared to colour, sitting next to her.

People who think they are charming someone, risk becoming the least charming person in the world if they boast about it in their hearing. And that may be the mistake No. 10 risked with its slightly gushing briefing about the rapport between the two leaders.

They made a mistake – not a massive one, but an unnecessary one – suggesting the cool-headed rationalist with a physics doctorate to her name would shower the PM with helpful, game-changing remarks, giving credibility to his Europe strategy.

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