Mrs May’s first foreign visit started with a welcome from a military band and a guard of honour before the talks with Dr Merkel.
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May said that she wanted to work with her German counterpart and European colleagues in “a constructive spirit to make this a sensible and orderly departure”.
The chancellor, after pausing for a moment to hear the final words of the translation, turned to May with an equally broad smile and said, “Genau”, German for “exactly”.
The meeting, after all, was not a true negotiation.
Key sticking points in the Brexit negotiations could be freedom of movement and the timetable for triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which starts the two-year countdown to Britain’s formal departure.
Merkel struck a conciliatory tone, saying “nobody wants a long-term stalemate” but adding it was reasonable to give Britain time to prepare its European Union exit carefully.
Described as “utterly intractable” by a Cameron ally, May will be up against the equally pragmatic Merkel, who has told Britain it will not be able to “cherry pick” what it wants to keep from its European Union membership.
The meeting was a historic coming together of female leaders in a year in which the United States could elect its first female president.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced May had formally informed European Council President Donald Tusk that Britain will not take up the rotating EU presidency as scheduled from the second half of 2017. Now May is referred to in the German press as “the British Merkel”.
European Union leaders have said they will not enter into formal negotiations with Britain until it triggers Article 50.
The Brexit talks are likely to center on two interrelated issues: trade and immigration.
“There’s no wiggle room”, said Simon Hix, professor of political science at the London School of Economics, citing resistance to Britain’s demands in Germany and in Brussels.
“I’m very clear, Brexit does mean Brexit”, she said.
Theresa May arrived in Berlin fresh from Prime Minister’s Questions in London.
By all accounts, it was a confident beginning. But that is what she did, delivering zinger upon zinger in a session that prompted raucous cheering from her fellow Conservatives and stone-faced stares from the opposition Labour Party.
Merkel added: “No one wants this to be up in the air. Less than a day into the job and it appears that the new prime minister has already downgraded action to tackle climate change, one of the biggest threats we face”, said Craig Bennett, CEO of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “Well, it just keeps making us prime minister”.
May will have a tougher time in Paris, where she travels on Thursday. She also rejected criticism of Boris Johnson, the new Foreign Secretary, saying: “I have appointed a team of ministers who will take forward the position of the British Government”. She also did not rule out a deal for the United Kingdom that combines free trade with controls on immigration, saying Germany would be listening to what Britain wants before coming to a decision on its position.
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But she did wish the member of Parliament who asked the question a happy birthday.
