Most European leaders have cancelled all foreign trips for the foreseeable future as fuel prices continue to rise and their popularity continues to sink. Prime ministers from Lionel Jospin to Tony Blair are instead concentrating on domestic policy to placate voters and dig themselves out of their opinion-poll holes.

But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder yesterday headed off to Russia, showing just how untroubled he is by the fuel crisis that has rattled his European counterparts.

His combination of soft soap and hard sell has seen the red/green federal coalition government survive the fuel crisis relatively unscathed. The government's satisfaction rating has fallen just two percentage points in the last month to 46 per cent, not bad going for a government hitting its mid-term. Compared to leaders elsewhere in Europe, Mr Schroder has yet to put a foot wrong.

The fuel crisis has allowed the Chancellor to play the mediator, a role in which he has enjoyed his greatest success since finding his political feet 12 months ago.

From a sweeping overhaul of the tax system to a consensual pay agreement, he has successfully presented himself as the voice of reason, stepping into negotiations to find a sensible compromise.

Mr Schroder's first step at the start of the fuel crisis was to gird himself politically by backing his junior partner in government, the Green Party, and what he called the "vital eco-tax".

The eco-tax is the Green Party's attempt to encourage a reduction in fuel consumption by gently turning the screws on German motorists. For the Greens, the tax is also a matter of pride, as it is one of the few divergent policy areas where they haven't conceded to their larger government partner. By backing the unpopular tax, Mr Schroder secured himself politically, allowing him to concentrate on fighting his opponents.

Last week he showed the strength of his position, launching the fiercest attack yet by a European leader on the petrol multinationals. He accused them of exacerbating Europe's petrol crisis by "incomprehensible price-rigging at the expense of consumers". Attack is the best form of defence, and in catching the petrol multinationals off guard, Mr Schroder forced them into blustering denial mode.

He then took aim at the opposition Christian Democratic Union. The CDU has pounced on the petrol crisis as the first opportunity to win back some of the support lost since the party was rocked by revelations of illegal political donations. CDU members around the country have been busy distributing bumper stickers and collecting signatures calling for the abolition of the eco-tax.

Mr Schroder has attacked the CDU campaign as irresponsible, saying that in its desperation to win back voters, the party is playing into the hands of the petrol multinationals and the organisation of oil-producing countries, OPEC.

The Chancellor's next task was to at least placate, if not win over, motorists. Germany is a nation of car-lovers, sharing the American belief that car ownership is a civil right. But Germans are more ecologically minded than most other Europeans, and for most, motoring is a guilty pleasure.

That was clear during last week's "car-free" day in Berlin, as one embarrassed motorist after another was nabbed by television crews while sitting alone in their cars, going nowhere in the rush-hour gridlock.

The media have helped Mr Schroder by wheeling out transport experts to take the pleasure out of driving and leave German motorists full of guilt.

"Road transport in Germany is not too expensive, it's too cheap," says Mr Rudolf Peterson of the Institute for Transport and Logistics in Wuppertal. "Neither the road network nor the environment will be able to handle the projected 50 per cent rise in road transport in the next decade," he adds.

The federal government demonstrated flawless timing last week, strategically announcing substantial new investment in Germany's crumbling rail network. The government had pledged to shift traffic from road to rail transport when it took office two years ago, but until the announcement, the Deutsche Bahn railway company hadn't received so much as a pfennig.

MAKING the announcement, federal Transport Minister Mr Rein hard Klimmt said the multi-billion-deutchsmark investment would give Germans a real and practical alternative to their cars. When he finally announced a DM2.9 billion (£1.16 bn) fuel compensation package last Friday, Mr Schroder was at pains to demonstrate he had not bowed to political or industry pressure to reduce fuel prices.

His package would supply "relief where it's needed, without folding in the face of campaigns", he said. It would provide new tax allowances for commuters and special payments to help worse-off households with heating bills.

Mr Schroder has stood behind his Green coalition partners. He has said he will not consider a cut in the eco-tax, arguing that such a move would give oil-producing countries and oil companies even more scope to increase prices. "Opponents of the eco-tax who go against the government and out on to the streets are risking a return to the four million unemployed under Helmut Kohl," Mr Schroder told a regional party conference last weekend.

Mr Schroder has been lucky until now, and he knows it. Compared to elsewhere in Europe, blockades in Germany have been small-scale and short-lived. He used last weekend's speech to prepare the ground for today's long-threatened truckers' protest in Berlin.

An expected 1,200 truckers and taxi-drivers plan to bring traffic to a standstill as they bring their grievances to the steps of the Reichstag parliament building. But unlike his European counterparts, Mr Schroder has had the time to prepare the ground.

Mr Schroder has defied his harshest critics in his handling of the fuel crisis, with even the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper grudgingly acknowledging him as the "eternal winner of German politics". But as the fuel protests in Germany enter a new stage, his opponents are hoping that Mr Schroder has come to the end of his winning streak.