The first Carinthian war
By the time you read this, the war will probably be over. The Great Austrian blitzkrieg of the New Year 2000 will be another short engagement in the military history of the Age of Spin.
Feathers will almost certainly have been smoothed, compromises agreed, modus operandi established, and the political gesture revealed to be just that -a gesture. Final result: no dead; a few Austrian psyches wounded; EU popularity in the Habsburg lands: nul points.
Yet if one day your children ask what you felt when the giants of bien-pensant liberal democracy placed their tanks on J?rg Haider's razor-cut Carinthian lawns, what will you say?
One asks, because many law-abiding Europhiles in Brussels found themselves sorely tested when they woke to find that hostilities had broken out. The hills of Uccle and Tevuren were by no means alive with the sound of rejoicing.
To start with, many officials of the European commission were plain offended that member states had acted without consulting them-such spontaneous and decisive action is against the whole noble tradition of Community prevarication. Second, they were horrified to discover that, legally at least, this was not even an EU decision.
Despite 14 clearly identified national fingerprints on the bilateral diplomatic boycott "statement" and its presentation by the Portuguese presidency, the move was officially described as an action by individual member states-not the council of ministers. Therefore the EU was not even getting "credit"-if that is the right word-for its lofty principles.
But should credit be due? To return to the Euro-kiddies' plaintive question-"Where did you stand?"-Brussels can only reply: "Divided." Indeed, the reaction of the Euro-establishment delivered an x-ray photograph of the fault line which runs beneath the surface harmony and common purpose.
For purist advocates of the European state-in-waiting this was a historic day; the moment, as one of them put it, when Europe stopped being about the mechanics of a single market and started being about core principles.
Yet many others found, often to their own surprise, that their initial reaction was horror. "Have we now decided to declare war on Eurosceptics and adjudicate on the electoral choices of our citizens?" one of them asked. "And, more important, will that increase our popularity?" In which case, why did we not boycott Italy when Signor Fini, Mussolini's heir, joined the Berlusconi government? Indeed, why do we not withdraw ambassadors from the communist-backed government in Paris?
By now, no doubt, lederhosen and loden coats are back in vogue on the streets of Brussels. The storm troopers in the coffee cups will have melted away like the Tyrolean snows. But in its modest way, the Great Austrian campaign was a defining moment. The day when the European establishment declared: "Ve hav vays of making you liberal democrats" will be remembered for ever-but not universally with joy.
Where is Chris Patten?
Chris Patten may have been voted (alongside Sean Penn and Brad Pitt) one of the ten sexiest men in the world-according to the European Voice-but he is not winning any beauty contests in Brussels. When the Finnish presidency ruffled Turkish feathers at the Helsinki summit, the council of ministers sent Javier Solana, their pompously-named High Representative, to smooth them down. To add insult to injury, President Prodi also despatched the enlargement supremo, Commissioner G?nter Verheugen-which was jurisdictionally correct, if also a cruel reminder about the limits to Patten's bailiwick.
So, surely, Austria was Patten's baby as commissioner for external relations? No, sorry: not external, you see, therefore not his. If this had fallen to anyone, it could arguably have been down to the social affairs commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou-minister for racism and human rights. In the end, it was the parliamentary liaison officer, Neil Kinnock, who got the cameras and the press, even making the BBC nine o'clock news.
Rumours from inside the shadowy world of the college of commissioners indicate that Patten is a formidable contributor to their Wednesday debates. Yet the general impression in Brussels is that he is a little like the Yeti-formidable by reputation, although no one is quite sure whether he actually exists.
The unlamented Leon Brittan made sure that, when he was shafted in a bid to become Europe's all-singing, all-dancing foreign minister, at least he maintained relations with the US, Japan and China as add-ons to his trade portfolio. Pretty, Pang may be, but it is time someone found him a real job.
Wheels within Walls
When John Major promoted his foreign policy adviser, Stephen Wall, to be ambassador to Portugal, he promptly invited himself to Lisbon to celebrate. It now emerges that John Holmes, one of Wall's successors in Downing Street, has landed Lisbon-and guess what, Tony and Cherie are coming to stay. That logic suggests that Holmes may be on his way to UKRep. John Sawers, his successor in Downing Street, must be boning up on etiquette and Portuguese.
