Angela Merkel told Vladimir Putin last night that Russia could not pick on individual European states and expect a business-as-usual approach from the European Union.

The German Chancellor took her toughest line yet with the Russian leader at a dinner before of today’s EU-Russia summit which has been overshadowed by a series of disputes between Moscow and its former Iron Curtain neighbours.

Mrs Merkel arrived at the summit venue in Samara, a city in southeast Russia, as Anna Fotyga, Poland’s Foreign Minister, declared that EU-Russia relations were in crisis.

Russia has blocked meat exports from Poland for 18 months, citing health fears, in a move seen by Warsaw as purely political.

In return, Poland refused to allow talks to begin today on a new economic partnership agreement between the EU and Russia.

While Mrs Merkel made clear that she did not share Ms Fotyga’s views, she was determined to strike a more robust approach to Mr Putin than that of her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder.

He signed Germany up to a pipeline deal with Russia that bypassed Poland and the Baltic states, much to their annoyance. Mr Schröder, a friend of Mr Putin, then went on to join the board of Gazprom, the company building the pipeline.

Since then Russia’s relations with the EU have soured, with Moscow objecting to plans to locate US interceptor missile technology in Poland and the Czech Republic, and even refusing to ratify a deal to scrap charges for European airlines using Siberian airspace.

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