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David Cameron celebrated his 49th birthday on Friday night with Angela Merkel at Chequers, although the festivities were clouded by questions over Britain’s EU future, the Syrian refugee crisis and Ukraine.
Mr Cameron and Ms Merkel enjoy warm relations and have spent many convivial hours in the Buckinghamshire countryside, but Friday night’s meeting and dinner was dominated by serious business.
The UK prime minister wants his German counterpart to help him inject political energy into Britain’s EU renegotiation, which is mired in technical talks in Brussels, with a view to making substantial progress before the end of the year.
The task has been given new urgency, as one putative Brexit campaign was launched on Thursday night with an analysis of the costs of Britain’s EU membership: Vote Leave has significant financial backing and cross-party support.
Mr Cameron’s team see the autumn as a chance for a new diplomatic offensive — a window between Poland’s general election on October 25 and the EU’s end-of-year summit on December 17 and 18.
“We want to talk about the next stage,” said one British official.
But in Berlin there is considerable concern that Mr Cameron has so far failed to say explicitly what he wants — delaying the start of real negotiations.
Mr Cameron’s problem is that if he says precisely what he is seeking, his eurosceptic opponents will say it is not enough. If the prime minister then secures only some of what he wants, his problem is compounded.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, has studied the UK-German relationship and says the British side feels that the Germans “aren’t being as helpful as they might be” on the question of welfare for migrant workers.
Meanwhile, he says Ms Merkel’s team views as “special pleading” British demands for protection for non-eurozone countries and their place in the EU single market. “They see it as crude protectionism for the City,” he said.
One option being promoted by Britain is for the EU to be reconfigured as a two-pillar structure, with the single market kept completely separate from the closer integration envisaged for the eurozone.
Regarding refugees, German politicians have expressed frustration at the UK’s unwillingness to participate more fully in Berlin-led efforts to spread the burden of the migration crisis from the countries taking the largest numbers: Germany, Austria and Sweden.
There was more agreement on Friday night on the need to retain EU sanctions on Russia if it failed to honour its commitments to pull back from Ukraine; Mr Cameron and Ms Merkel are both hawkish on the issue.
Ms Merkel has frequently reminded Mr Cameron that she cannot deliver EU reform on her own, and the British prime minister has recently broadened his diplomatic effort to the 26 other European leaders.
However, the two leaders retain considerable empathy for each other’s concerns and in the past have whiled away hours at Chequers watching DVDs of Midsomer Murders, one of Ms Merkel’s favourite shows.
Mr Cameron likes to take visitors to the spot on Coombe Hill where he stood with the German chancellor admiring the English countryside: “As I said to Angela, if things had been different all this could have been yours,” he jokes.
Contrary to earlier reports, Ms Merkel did not stay over at Chequers: she returned to Berlin after dinner, leaving Mr Cameron to spend the rest of his birthday with his family.