Germany embraced Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian President, like a long-lost cousin today in the hope that he will freshen up a relationship that was starting to curdle when Vladimir Putin was in the Kremlin.

It was the newly elected President's first official trip to the European Union, and the choice of Germany was significant. Like his predecessor Mr Medevedev believes that Berlin is still the most receptive to the Kremlin's message.

France may have given the new Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, a flattering presidential-style welcome on a trip last week, but ultimately France is as suspicious as Britain about Russia's use of the energy weapon, its human rights record and its huge, oil-driven defence spending. But as long as the Social Democrats are part of a governing coalition in Berlin, Russian leaders feel comfortable there.

The Germans meanwhile wanted to take a closer look at Mr Medvedev. He had come to Berlin bearing a present — his refusal to pass into law a new, more repressive media code, something that seemed to impress Chancellor Merkel.

There are two questions nagging the West about Mr Medvedev: is he going to be constantly second-guessed by Mr Putin to the extent that he will never develop independent policies? And will the reallocation of power between the Prime Minister's and the President's office sap Moscow's global presence?

"Better bad cop, good cop, " said a German expert on Russia, analysing the strange double-headed leadership taking shape in Moscow, "than bad cop, bad cop."

So the hunt was on to see how convincing the president's "liberal" credentials were. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German Foreign Minister, reportedly raised the question of imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, after meeting Mr Khodorkovsky's lawyer during a long visit to Moscow last month. EU diplomats say there are signs that the Russian authorities might ease his jail conditions.

The fact that this human rights theme came from Mr Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who is tipped to be the party's challenger to Chancellor Merkel next year, was significant. Under Mr Putin, who was a close friend of the former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (now working for Gazprom), it was always assumed that the Social Democrats would play down human rights, in public at least. Chancellor Merkel, by contrast, irritated the Kremlin with her open references to murdered journalists and her meetings with oppositionists.

President Medvedev made some of the right noises when he addressed almost a thousand members of the German business and political elite: stressing Russian respect for civil law, its identity as a European power, its sense of responsibility on oil and gas, his determination to make Russia more green.

Germany is more heavily dependent than any other western European society on Russian energy imports, and it is the most eager to establish a Russia-EU partnership agreement. This will be discussed at a joint summit in Siberia next month — another chance to study whether Mr Medvedev has strings attached to his arms.

There was failure during the Berlin trip to make significant progress on Kosovo. Russia will not recognise its independence for fear of encouraging its own separatists. The Chancellor reminded the Russian leader that Germany helped to stave off Ukranian and Georgian membership at the last NATO summit, but it did so on condition that Russia would ease tensions with Georgia. This has not happened.

The German government is crying out for a foreign policy success before the 2009 election. But the terms of a Russia-EU partnership are too controversial within Europe to promise any quick progress. Many EU states want very detailed commitments to investor protection and the transparency of its huge energy concerns before making concessions of their own.

Even so, the tone of the Russian President's speech was conciliatory, almost gentle in parts: starkly different to Mr Putin's performance at the last-but-one Munich security conference, in which he warned against a new Cold War. Mr Medvedev is as opposed to the US missile shield as Mr Putin was, but he has an advantage — change in the White House may usher in a different superpower relationship.

Mrs Merkel's advisers calculate that a new US administration, especially if it is a Democrat one, will lead to a 12-month interregnum in policy-making towards Russia. That gap should best be exploited by the EU tying Russia more closely into an energy security pact.

At the heart of the German-Russian relationship is the compact that has existed since the days of Czar Peter the Great: Germany undertakes to help modernise Russia in return for German access to the vast mineral resources of the Russian hinterland.

"Russia is ready to co-operate with Germany not only in extracting and transporting oil and gas, " said Sergei Prikhodko, the President's chief foreign policy adcviser," but also in electric and nuclear energy and energy machine-building."

For the time being though German politicians are content to stare into Mr Medvedev's eyes, as President Bush once famously did with President Putin, and see if they provide a window into his soul.

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