Chirac's one-upmanship
"Bons auspices footballistiques," certainly, for France's stewardship of the EU. But confusion, too, over mixed signals from Paris. Listening to Jacques Chirac's speech in Berlin, your average euro-punter might have been forgiven for thinking that European integration was about to make a great leap forward. Yet, on closer examination, the presidential address was more about visionary one-upmanship-and clearly triggered by Joschka Fischer's federal musings of a few weeks earlier (see p38).
In Brussels, where these things are as closely observed as a Zidane penalty kick, it was hard not to spot what was missing. Chirac said not one word about the European commission, guardian of the treaty and keeper of the supranational flame. He talked instead of a "secretariat" which might coordinate a "pioneering group" of governments. The compatriot of Monnet, Schuman and Delors was speaking in a very different tradition.
Romano Prodi is said to have made a few sharpish remarks when he arrived in Paris for the inaugural meeting between commission and presidency. Lionel Jospin and ministers were equally irritated with Chirac for coming over all europhile just as they were trying to focus on the vital institutional reforms which have to be agreed by the Nice summit in December.
Cohabitation has its own logic, so Chirac pedalled furiously back, spoke earnestly of the tasks ahead-and paid fulsome tribute to the commission's "indispensable" role.
Spectator sport
Talking of the beautiful game, those in Brussels who remember Boris Johnson (and there are many) were bemused to read him sounding so knowledgeable about football in a Spectator editorial written after England's defeat by Romania. Plagiarism is not a word to use lightly in the context of struggling right-of-centre weeklies owned by litigious Canadians. But did anybody else notice an uncanny (though unacknowledged) resemblance to Simon Kuper's highly original and much-praised Prospect article on football in the July issue? Boris lifted Kuper's arguments wholesale about the superiority of the continental game and England's painful but unavoidable adjustment to it. Curiously, however, he left out the conclusion: that football is improving the image of continental Europe among ordinary Britons and will thus help Tony Blair win a referendum on the euro.
Shaken spooks
Sighs of relief in the spookier corners of Whitehall over the European parliament's decision to investigate the mysterious Echelon economic espionage system with only the feeblest of its feeble powers. Echelon, a US-run network of satellites and listening posts in which our own GCHQ eavesdroppers play a vital role, is reportedly capable of intercepting countless zillions of phone calls, faxes and emails, giving the dastardly Anglo-Saxons real commercial advantages over European rivals.
It's an awkward issue, because it underlines-and exaggerates-the starkness of the choice which Britain must make between its Atlantic and European destinies. But full marks, in any event, to Graham Watson, the smart Liberal Democrat MEP, for trying bravely to peddle HMG's line that all interceptions, not just those by Uncle Sam and his British poodle, should be scrutinised. Tory central office was cruder. "Who sunk the Rainbow Warrior?" shrieked Francis Maude, accusing Euro MPs of trying to drive a wedge between Washington and London.
Snooker on the radio
Poor Neil Kinnock must be looking forward to his hols. The commission vice-president has had a gruelling few months, with little to show for it. Having admitted that his reform dossier is about as exciting as "listening to snooker on the radio," he is desperate for a success to put him back in the public eye. He really needs, observed one wit, not entirely in jest, a decent strike by those truculent staff unions so that he could talk tough and face them down.
Over at the parliament, meanwhile, Mme Glenys has had much more luck with her travels as development spokesperson for the Labour group, arriving on cue in a succession of far-flung, palm-fringed islands just as brutal military coups were being launched.
Cong?bligatoire
It's that time of year again. Nordic stagières held an Arctic Heat party last week; Leonidas have just brought out its exquisite summer range of chocolates; the restaurants have shut down; the builders have all gone off on their cong?bligatoire. Brussels closes down early for the long hot summer (or the long, rainy, humid one). Early July flooding at the Rond Point Schuman, in the shadow of the now asbestos-free Berlaymont building, augurs badly for smooth progress at the beating heart of Europe when normal business resumes in September.
Queen Nicole
Nicole Fontaine, the appropriately regal president of the European parliament, visited Britain last month, where she met the Queen and heard a mild royal indiscretion about one being prepared to join the euro-if it was a success. She also made a valiant attempt to show supranational solidarity by sampling British beef-a nice gesture, as the case against her native France winds its stately way through the courts. L'Hexagone, meanwhile, turns out to be the worst offender against EU laws, with no fewer than 464 cases under investigation. That's double the union average-and streets ahead of less pioneering member states. Whoever said that a two-speed Europe was just a pipedream? Vive la présidence!
