Britannia Radio

10 December 2010 1:11 PM

Europe to Washington: "Big me up, please"

Thanks to Eurointelligence for translating this from Der Spiegel: the Wikileaks documents show how the US has been playing one vain EU leader off another.

Example: Sarkozy was allowed to address a joint meeting of the US Congress in October 2007, so then President Bush immediately invited Chancellor Merkel and her husband to the 'Western White House' at Crawford, Texas.

The leaked cables 'were particularly scathing about Sarkozy, who according to the American embassy, has to intimidate his own staff to such a degree that there is nobody to warn that the emperor has no clothes.'

The cable went on to suggest 'the US administration have lost all respect for European leaders for whom a joint meeting, or press conference with Obama, constituted a goal in

itself.'

Meanwhile, back here in Brussels, we are waiting for the Agricultural and Fisheries Council to meet on Monday and Tuesday, a kind of opening bout before the Main Event at the end of the week, the full-on European Council, formerly known as a 'summit.'

This is the only AgFish meeting of the year that civilians are much interested in, because it sets the quotas. Alas, the council has decided against making all the ministers stay locked up on Monday night until they reach an agreement. (The synthetic tension always made for a better news story).

Instead, the meetings will spill over until Tuesday evening. Stand by for news about quotas for such otherwise unknown fish as the 'megrim.' (EU-types assure us it is 'very popular in France.' But I doubt Sarko had the creature on the menu for Obama.)

What is going to happen at the meetings? Well, if you want to know what sort of ideas come out of such meetings, just remember what years of EU 'more Europe' policies have done to European fisheries policy: 40 percent of all cod caught is now thrown back overboard so as not to breach quota. And that's an official figure.

So, going by the form, whatever is going to happen is unlikely to be good. Or even intelligent.