Forty-five TV minutes with Merkel

On Monday evening German television screened a fascinating 'What makes Merkel'.

The prgramme began showing the German Chancellor in her spacious office in Berlin.

On one occasion during the euro crisis she cancelled a meeting with Federal State premiers and spent hours in her car in Berlin calling EU ministers. Photo journalists were expecting her to call at a certain place, instead her car passed at great speed.

It went on to describe how she wheels and deals behind closed doors and tells another story in public and in parliament.

It cited how she dealt with the euro crisis in 2010 and how she handled the loan to Greece. And then the referendum in Greece, which she heard about through the press.

It showed how Merkel supported Sarkosy in the run-in to the French election. He lost and Merkel would pay the price.

The prgramme explained how Merkel did not get her way at the EU Heads of State in 2011. It was Hollande's first EU meeting.

German civil servants had decided that if Greece were to leave the EU it would be catastrophic for the EU and Germany. Just in those days Samaras visited Merkel in Berlin. But Merkel was still saying publicly that Greece could leave the EU.

At one stage in the crisis, Jens Weidman, head of the Federal German Centrall Bank was on the verge of resigning.

Peer Steinbruck, the SPD chancellor candidate for the 2013 elections recognised that the situation in Europe is now far more stable than in 2010.

The 45-minute programme never once mentioned one word about the situation/crisis in Ireland.