Then, only two days later, Mr Obama got a call from Mrs Merkel. It may have been the most awkward conversation he has had on the topic yet. Mrs Merkel demanded to know whether the Americans were tapping her mobile phone. A German magazine, Der Spiegel, had asked Germany’s intelligence agencies this, as a result of which Mrs Merkel discovered reasons to suspect as much.

Not now and not in future, Mr Obama replied. This conspicuously left one tense unaccounted for: the past. Germans must assume that their chancellor has in fact been bugged and are wondering what they will discover next.

If there was such espionage, it amounts to “a grave breach of trust” among friends, said Mrs Merkel’s spokesman. Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, followed his French colleague by angrily summoning the American ambassador in Berlin. America’s image has been sinking in Germany and Europe ever since the revelations began. Many EU negotiators are losing their zeal to discuss a free-trade agreement with America without clarifying their overall relationship.

On the same day that Mrs Merkel called Mr Obama, the European Parliament voted to recommend that the EU suspend an arrangement with America in which they share a money-transfer database. As European leaders arrived in Brussels on October 24th for the latest EU summit, American spying was not officially on the agenda. Many were itching to talk seriously about it nonetheless.

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