SINCE taking over the driving seat of Europe’s largest economy, Angela Merkel has been criticised for steering Germany into trouble in the Middle East, slamming on the brakes by raising taxes and falling asleep at the wheel of government. Now an explanation is at hand.

The German Chancellor has admitted to having bribed her instructor to pass her driving test in what was then communist East Germany. “After 38 lessons I was still no closer to taking my driving test,” she ruefully told a celebrity audience at the Golden Steering Wheel annual awards.

“I complained to a friend who said, ‘How much are you tipping the instructor?’ I said, ‘Nothing. It’s bad enough that he takes a 15-minute break every time he gives me an hourly lesson’.”

Mrs Merkel finally understood the rules of communism: no bribe, no driving test. “As soon as I started to pay him, everything picked up,” she said. “And I passed first time.”

In East Germany, driving instructors were also the examiners. The test was monitored by a policeman, but since he was drawn from the local force it was usually enough to pay him the price of a beer to nod through below-average drivers.

In Mrs Merkel’s hometown of Templin, locals say that bribes were usually paid in the form of a bottle of schnapps.

The German leader, who was a young university physicist in the 1980s with little cash to spare, refused to say in what form the bribes were paid.

Mrs Merkel admitted not only to erratic driving but also to being an irritating backseat driver.

“I haven’t driven since becoming Chancellor, but I’m nervous when my husband drives me. I’m always sure that the car will run dry because he insists on driving on an almost-empty tank. I’m more nervous than he is.”

The couple ususally drive to their weekend cottage in the Uckermark district of Brandenberg state in what was East Germany, loaded up with vegetables so that Mrs Merkel can cook her favourite potato soup.

The confessions of Mrs Merkel will certainly raise the eyebrows of German male drivers. Many seem to identify personal power with horsepower.

Her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, was dubbed the “Car Chancellor” because of his close links with Volkswagen and his penchant for posing in lavish limousines.

Chancellor Kohl found driving difficult because of his wide girth and his weak knees but managed nonetheless to be photographed regularly in a Mercedes.

Mrs Merkel, however, projects a more modest image. After passing her driving test she put her name on the two-year waiting list for a Trabant, the East German car with an engine resembling a souped-up lawnmower.

Before her name came up, the Berlin Wall fell and she became the proud owner of a VW Golf. “But if I had lots of money, I would get a Mini,” she told the Golden Steering Wheel audience this week.

“Practical, small, nice looking, a certain raffishness, that’s my kind of car”, she said, “probably in an inconspicuous colour like dark green. After all, you don’t want to attract the attention of the police.”

Mrs Merkel, however, is plainly aware that one cannot continue to win elections in the land of the autobahn without championing high-speed motoring.

When Michael Schumacher retired from Formula 1 racing recently, the Chancellor praised him extravagantly: “He got to the top because of his German virtues: hard work, precise preparation and, above all, the will to win.”

Everybody understood that Mrs Merkel was in fact talking about herself, and that you do not have to be a Ferrari driver, or even particularly good at parking, to steer a country.

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