We can always tell when they are having a bad day at the Quai d'Orsay. Some enarch grasps a podium, leans deep into the microphones, and -- blinding the audience in the glare of her white knuckles -- pronounces everything is for sh*t.

FRENCH MINISTER WARNS EU PROJECT RISKS 'COLLAPSE'

PARIS August 29, 2006 (AFP) - Describing the state of the union as "alarming", Catherine Colonna [Minister delegate for European Affairs, speaking before the annual corroboree of French ambassadors in Paris] said the EU was "suffering from a kind of wasting disease, a general fatigue that bodes ill for its ability to answer the needs of its peoples. Can the European Union carry on at this pace for long? Can Europe even take [sic] crucial decisions any more?"

"We need to fundamentally jumpstart the situation, if we are to avoid the risk of a collapse of European construction, a slow and inexorable dilution."

The EU was plunged into disarray following the French and Dutch rejection of a draft constitution...

To illustrate the bloc's "lengthy decision-making process", Colonna cited the example of a services directive drafted in 2004, which will not come into effect before 2008.

She also said more and more decisions were being taken at intergovernmental level, amid a "near-universal suspicion of integration (between EU members), which was long held up as an objective."

We rather thought it was the objective.

From forest fires in southern Europe to the problem of illegal immigration in the Mediterranean — problems that affect many of its members — she said the EU had failed to find recipes for joint action.

Europe should aim to be a "power in the process of globalisation", she said. "It should do fewer small things but more great ones". "That is what its citizens have come to expect from it."

We've little quarrel with much of what Mlle. Colonna says here.

The member states do not appear to share a common idea of the European Union. Some see it as a sort of federated super-state. Others see it as a sort of super-national carpool, where member states pile in and go for a ride.

The EU is a hodge-podge of treaties. It has no comprehensive governing instrument. Its executive, the EU commission, is appointed from old boy networks of governments. It does not originate law, though it regulates to death. It has no military, and it is hard to conceive of it ever presenting unified policies on foreign affairs and social morals.

The EU is a committee project, which naturally enough extolls the ideal of committee work. It is an exercise in big -- really really big -- government. It has a European anthem (Rhapsodie sur l'Hymne Européen by Christopher Guyard) that goes largely unsung. It has a nice flag. It has an innocuous motto ("L'unité dans la diversité"). It has its own special day (Europe Day, May 9). It has all the accoutrements of some sort of nation-state or sports franchise.

It might help were it to have a soul.

PFFT (What is this?): Poor EU report card 3½ | Rayonnement français 0