Tough talk or electioneering?
How about this for wisdom, from President Sarko and his friend?
“Never have so many countries wanted to join Europe. Never has the risk of a disintegration of Europe been so great. Europe is facing an extraordinarily dangerous situation.”
He said the eurozone economies still had a few weeks to decide, but that time was working against them.
“The diagnosis is that we have a few weeks to decide because time is working against us. If we aren’t in agreement on this, I fear that we won’t be able to agree on anything. That’s the analysis.”
Mrs Merkel has said changes to the European basic treaty are necessary. She said all 27 member states in the EU had a duty to Europe, and had to work together to overcome the crisis in the eurozone.
National egos and interests had to be put aside, she added.
Those would be national egos with the exception of the French and the Germans, then? Both Sarkozy and Merkel are facing elections very soon. Are they playing to the European gallery, or their own, just as Dave Cameron has gone to the Marseille conference with his card well marked by his own back benches?
Quintin Jardine's blog 