By Geoff Dyer, the FT's China bureau chief

China can do strange things to your politics. I know foreigners who purr about the efficiency of authoritarian bureaucracy and others who search Confucian texts for new political ideas. In my case, China has converted me to the importance of the European Union.

Sitting in Beijing, it is all too easy to feel that Europe is becoming irrelevant, as the US and a rising China stitch up the global agenda. The Chinese have become quite adept at playing one European government against another. When Beijing cancelled a summit with the EU last year to punish Nicolas Sarkozy for meeting the Dalai Lama, the response from other EU capitals was an awkward silence. The European Council on Foreign Relations claims Beijing treats the EU with "diplomatic contempt".

It is not easy being a European foreign minister these days. A 27-member EU makes for a great deal of complexity; new global powers are flexing their muscles; and the novel and stronger institutional foreign-policy set-up in Brussels that will emerge from the Lisbon treaty will require ministers to show what the French call doigté and the Germans Fingerspitzengefühl - an ability to react flexibly. And with globalisation internationalising all ministers' portfolios, foreign ministers risk being sidelined even within their own government on crucial international issues, such as climate change or global governance.

So Guido Westerwelle, Germany's new foreign minister and leader of the Free Democrats (FDP), should not expect an easy ride. He also faces two additional challenges to establish his authority. A young politician from a smallish party that has long been out of government, he lacks ministerial experience and an international profile. And, as the doyenne of German feminism Alice Schwarzer has pointed out, the prospect of a gay foreign minister serving next to a woman chancellor, whilst welcome across much of Europe as a sign of social progress, is likely to trigger a frosty reaction in other parts of the world.

Westerwelle may come to symbolise the liberalisation of European society. It is an open question, though, how his political liberalism will affect Germany's foreign policy.

US President Barack Obama sees Eastern Europe as a "Bush administration project" and is not conscious of the need to counter growing Russian influence there, Edward Lucas, who has been The Economist's correspondent for Eastern Europe for over 20 years, told EurActiv Slovakia in an interview.

Edward Lucas, author of the book 'The New Cold War', says that the new Russian concept of "security architecture" in Europe implies the establishment of a condominium in Europe between Russia and the big European countries, excluding the United States and overriding the interests of small EU countries.

Confirming that EU leaders appear to read the job description of the first-ever permanent Council president as more of a 'chairman' than a 'leader', agencies reported today (2 November) that the mild-mannered Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, is the "most consensual" figure for the top job.

"There is a consensus on his name [Van Rompuy], which is rare among 27 [EU heads of state and government]. Nobody else has unanimity," said an EU diplomat, quoted by AFP.

"Nobody opposes him and many are asking him to accept," said another.

Van Rompuy, who became Belgium's prime minister last year and who turned 62 yesterday, found himself the object of very clear requests to take the post of first permanent Council president at the EU summit on 29-30 October, the sources reportedly added. AFP hinted that Van Rompuy has the strong support of France and Germany.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic says he will appear at his trial in The Hague on genocide and war crimes charges.

He boycotted the trial's start last week saying he needed more time to prepare his defence.

In a letter to the presiding judge, Mr Karadzic says he will attend a procedural hearing at the court on Tuesday to discuss his defence.

In Berlin, German squatters sympathising with the Dutch squatters movement threw orange and blue paint bombs and rocks at the Dutch embassy at the weekend. Solidarity protests also took place in Spain, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Austria.

The action was organised in protest against a ban due to come into force on 1 January. Squatting in the Netherlands has been tolerated since the climax of the squatters' movement in the 1970s. Then a Squatting Act was introduced allowing squatters' occupy buildings that had stood empty for at least 12 months. At the moment squatters can only be prosecuted for breaking in, which effectively means as long as they are not caught in the act they can legally squat a building. The authorities will leave them in peace unless the owner of the property could prove he had immediate plans for the premises.

In a week when European affairs are prominent, a study by an influential Brussels think tank suggests the EU is going about things the wrong way. The Europeans must stop being so submissive, they must present a united front on foreign policy and they must work toward a "post-American" state of affairs, the study says.

It's Europe Week in Washington. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been asked to speak to a joint session of the United States Congress on Tuesday as part of celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Only about a hundred world leaders have ever addressed a joint session of Congress. The last German chancellor to be bestowed the honor was Konrad Adenauer, who spoke before the US legislature in 1957 during the Cold War.

Shortly after on Tuesday, US President Barack Obama will also greet top European Union leaders at the EU-US summit. A special strategy meeting is planned on energy issues.

Ministers face an embarrassing showdown in court after the European Commission accused Britain of failing to protect its citizens from secret surveillance on the internet.

The move adds to claims that Britain is creeping towards a Big Brother state and could end with the Government being forced to defend its policy on internet privacy in front of judges at the European Court of Justice.

Timed to coincide with the main session of the Nordic Council, Swedish historian Gunnar Wetterberg's proposal to unite the five states of northern Europe under one symbolic monarch, was launched by Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter on October 27. Although it has failed to achieve unanimous support, it has caused a stir in the national press.

There is no doubt that a Nordic Union would have brilliant prospects -- but it has to happen first. The five Nordic countries -- Denmark, Finland, Iceland Norway, and Sweden -- have a total population of more than 25 million. In 2006, their combined GDP was more than 1,200 billion dollars (or 800 billion euros), making the Nordic region the tenth ranked economy in the world, just behind Canada and Spain but well ahead of Brazil and Russia.

If a Nordic Union is going  to happen, it has to happen now. The economic crisis has highlighted the need for reinforced political co-operation and monitoring, and the importance of participation in high-level decision making bodies, where our individual countries could not hope to achieve a level of influence that could be exerted by the region. All of the Nordic economies could benefit from greater integration with neighbouring countries. As it stands, they are often overly dependent on one or two market sectors. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Finland found itself in difficulty. Today, it is Sweden and its car industry, which is under pressure. If every country continues to cope on its own, similar problems will inevitably arise in the future. Finland continues to rely heavily on Nokia and the forestry industry, while Norway has an equally fragile industrial base. A Nordic Union would provide the stability of larger more diverse economy and offer the region's young people a wider range of career development possibilities.

France has launched a nationwide debate on national identity, that will see members of the public discussing issues such as whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the burqa.

Public meetings, which began on Monday in around 450 government offices around the country, are expected to be held regularly until the end of January.

The centre-right government of Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, has been pushing for the country to reclaim national symbols and values, which many fear are being compromised by immigration and globalisation.

But the socialist opposition has accused the government of pandering to anti-immigrant sentiment to garner support from the right, and says it risks alienating France's large immigrant communities.

Critics also fear the debate will provide a forum for inflammatory rhetoric against foreigners.

A close ally of Silvio Berlusconi will this week launch his political manifesto, a move seen as a direct challenge to the embattled Italian Prime Minister.

Gianfranco Fini, a former neofascist and now deputy leader of the ruling party, has decided to appeal directly to voters in the same month that Mr Berlusconi faces new trials for corruption. Mr Fini is the leading contender to succeed the Prime Minister -- although Mr Berlusconi has said that he will not resign even if convicted. Mr Fini, who is Speaker of the Lower House, has shed his extreme-Right past and adopted a statesmanlike stance, and on Wednesday will publish The Future of Freedom, subtitled Unasked-for Advice to Those Born in 1989.

He observes in the book that Italians now in their twenties were spared communism, fascism and the Cold War. But unimagined technological advances and frontier-free travel in Europe had "not necessarily" made them happier.

Instead, "the death of ideology" has led to narcissism and egoism, with the young disillusioned by politics, which appears to be "a vulgar exchange of insults". Mr Fini calls for a return to "inspiring vision, moral imperatives and family values", and tolerance on issues from bio-ethics to immigration.

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In fact, for all his open-shirted, husky-hugging attempts to update the Conservatives' image, Mr Cameron has always claimed to be a traditional eurosceptic - just one who makes less of a public fuss about Europe than the previous generation of Tories.

So his 2005 leadership campaign contained a small but significant pledge: to pull Conservative MEPs out of the federalist European People's Party grouping in the European Parliament.

The issue was obscure enough to ensure it was little-noticed by most voters and commentators, yet significant enough for Tory eurosceptics that they were prepared to support Mr Cameron.

When he delivered on the promise in March this year, many sceptics were elated, privately hailing the move as confirmation that their modernising leader was at heart "one of us".