A nice journalist lady on France Inter this morning explained that Europe was seeking balance by having a Belgian president of Council and a British HRFASP: "one foot this side of the Channel, one foot on the other". That's balance between 27 countries...

What is amusing is that I distinctly recall hearing a Danish foreign policy "analyst¹" arguing that Russia could never join the European Union, because Russia's view of participating on an "equal footing" meant "one vote for Russia, one vote for everybody else."

- Jake

¹People who are unfamiliar with the Danish version of Newspeak should be aware that "foreign policy analyst" should in most cases be translated as "translator of news and analysis opinion pieces from the BBC, CNN and International Herald Tribune into Danish."

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.