WHEN Gerhard Schröder was re-elected German Chancellor in September 2002 he received the usual congratulatory telephone calls from fellow world leaders — with the notable exception of President Bush, who was disgusted that Herr Schröder had used America as a punchbag to turn around his faltering campaign.

When Mr Bush was re-elected last November, Herr Schröder rang the White House to congratulate him. The problem this time was that Mr Bush talked and talked and talked.

Herr Schröder had a plane to catch. With the loquacious President showing no sign of shutting up, Herr Schröder had to make his apologies and leave.

Mr Bush heads to Europe next week with those incidents serving to remind how petulant transatlantic relations became during his first term, and what a difference a presidential election makes.

To say that both sides are ready to kiss and make up is like saying that they were mildly irritated with each other over Iraq. Indeed, so keenly awaited is Mr Bush’s arrival in Brussels tomorrow evening that his visit has already been hailed a wild success.

On his maiden presidential trip across the Atlantic in 2001 it was very different. His new friends on the world stage were far from friendly, hectoring this dimwit cowboy about his rejection of the Kyoto treaty and the dangers of dissolving the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to permit deployment of his “Son of Star Wars” programme.

Later, Mr Bush would entertain aides with impressions of European leaders speaking very, very slowly so that the ignorant Texan could keep up.

Four years on, European Union leaders have been falling over each other to secure time in front of Mr Bush.

Rival EU institutions have tried to pull rank to host the most impressive event during his time in Brussels. For Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, it has been beyond parody. “One day you will read in my memoirs the difficulty to find the right way to have a press conference or to put a knife and fork together without having disrespect between institutions,” he joked.

“I’m told that grandmothers in Ohio or Texas turn off instantly if they find that our press conference is in Council rather than in the Commission.”

Two elections explain the turnaround. Not even the most hostile of America’s European critics can still complain that the man elected with more votes than any other US president does not deserve the Oval Office. “I think there is a recognition that this President has got his mandate and speaks for a lot of Americans,” said John Bruton, the EU Ambassador in Washington and former Irish Prime Minister.

In other words, European leaders know that Mr Bush is the man with whom they must do business for the next four years, and they are ready to get on with it.

There is also the Iraq election, which has drawn much of the sting from the bitterness over the war.

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