The last time Angela Merkel and Bono shared top billing, at the G8 meeting in a German Baltic Sea resort in 2007, it didn’t end well.The U2 frontman made a strategic error by agreeing to a photo call with the German leader before she failed to fully back his hoped-for debt relief deal for Global South countries.Nearly two decades on, Bono and the boys missed their Wiedersehen with Angela by skipping a ceremony on Tuesday to induct them and 15 others into a new European hall of fame.Merkel was made a distinguished member of the European Order of Merit, accepting her medal in person during the inaugural ceremony at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In a short address, the 71-year-old former chancellor warned that European leaders were failing their citizens by not tackling tech companies whose platforms spread disinformation online.Failing to use even existing legislation in a more robust fashion was, she said, undermining democracy because “facts were no longer facts”. “Believing that accountability for disseminating information is no longer necessary, that one will not be held accountable for lying, will undermine the foundations of democracy,” she said.As well as U2, another absent Irish honouree in Strasbourg was Mary Robinson, the former president and climate justice campaigner.[ Is Angela Merkel set to return as EU envoy on Ukraine?Opens in new window ]Organisers said all absentees will receive their honours at a later date. The awards were devised last year to mark the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration on May 9th, 1950, which proposed to put French and West German coal and steel production under control of a single authority, laying the foundation stone for European unification. The new European distinction honours individuals who have made significant contributions to European integration and promoted or defended of European values.Many far-right MEPs, including members of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), boycotted the ceremony, only to complain later online that “applauders” had been assigned to fill their empty chamber seats.Ahead of the ceremony, Merkel stepped up her criticism of the EU’s role in securing peace in Ukraine. “What I regret is that Europe is not exhausting its diplomatic potential,” she said in a Berlin podium discussion, in remarks seen as a nod to an ongoing discussion over appointing an EU peace envoy for talks with Russia and Ukraine. Merkel said the trusted formula for dealing with Russian president Vladimir Putin remained “deterrence and diplomacy”. [ The Irish Times view on the EU and Russia: Angela Merkel is in the frameOpens in new window ]Asked about speculation she might take on the peace envoy role, Merkel said she “never would have come upon” that idea and that only someone with “real governmental power” would impress Putin. Merkel was more firm in ruling out speculation that she might be interested in becoming Germany’s next federal president.“The office needs someone with more energy,” she said, “and I can’t do it.”