Angela Merkel visited the UK yesterday for the last time as German chancellor – the 22nd visit she has paid in her 16 years at the helm of German politics. Such an auspicious occasion however did not stop Boris Johnson from starting their joint press statement with a humorous jibe. A wry smile on his face, he told Merkel: ‘it was certainly a tradition, Angela, for England to lose to Germany in international football tournaments and I’m obviously grateful to you for breaking with that tradition, just for once.’
Good-natured, football-themed exchanges between the two nations were also in play elsewhere. The German ambassador in London, Andreas Michaelis, tweeted on Tuesday night that he congratulated the England team for their ‘much deserved victory’ but added that the German team will rebuild so that ‘this great competition’ between the two nations can continue. The German foreign minister Heiko Maas meanwhile turned up in person at the British Embassy in Berlin to deliver the crate of beer which had been at stake in a bet between him and Dominic Raab.
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