Summit Fight Shakes Europe

NYT reported Something shattered in Europe on Friday night. The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all.

Domestic politics and national interests will always defeat lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all. Thses counties have a very long memory of fighting each other, and they need something like this constitution which protects the rights of the individual countries.

The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders in the face of rising popular opposition to the project called Europe. Their attacks on one another after they failed to agree on a future budget - for 2007 through 2013 - seemed destructive and unnecessary, and it is not at all clear that they will be able to repair their relationships. Even if they do, the damage to the organization is done.

Professor Stephen Bainbridge blogged On this date in 1815, Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and France began its long slide towards its present status as a second rate power with delusions of grandeur. Wellington would later opine:

We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be detested in France.

Ditto. The Economist (in a subscriber only feature) suggests that the EU summit is replaying Waterloo.

The role of Napoleon will be played by Jacques Chirac of France; Tony Blair is cast as Wellington. Like Napoleon before Waterloo, Mr Chirac does not arrive in Brussels in good shape. But whereas Napoleon was troubled by cystitis and haemorrhoids on the eve of the battle, the French leader is afflicted by nothing worse than a nasty dose of political humiliation, after his failure to persuade French voters to say yes to the EU constitution in their referendum on May 29th. At least Mr Chirac has reacted to adversity in true Napoleonic fashion, by going on the attack.

I'm not yet sure whether the failure of the summit should be deemed another Waterloo. But I know for sure that de Villepin's enthusiasm for Napoleon is at least as troubling as his anti-Americanism.

Orrin Judd blogged Aren't they past the point where they can be humiliated?

Stephen blogged I cannot recall ever reading such a blunt take-down on a story of international relations, as this analysis by Elaine Schiolino on the meltdown at the failed EU summit.