Regarding your question, I'm not sure. Schröder showed it ample times with Fischer that the chancellor can make foreign policy over the head of the foreign minister. On the other hand, this coalition is supposed to come with guarantees that ministers won't be blocked by the other party - and, after all, the SPD is not a small unior parter easily blackmailed.

So I suspect Merkel's love affair with the Anglo-Saxons, if it develops, will mostly be symbolical gestures.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}