Rise up, erm… stakeholders

Hope springs eternal is what I say. And with every dawn a new hope arises as fresh as the morning dew or a field of buttercups or a young bull bellowing from behind a gate that an EU leader will make a speech that will go down in the history of the world as one of the greatest speeches known to man.

So it was with trembling anticipation that I was appraised of Herman Van Rompuy’s Warsaw speech outlining the achievements of the EU.

But what could they be?

"Europe has to be the fatherland of peace,” intoned Herman, and I felt my heart soar, although Antartica is a fatherland of peace too, with all that snow and penguins and absence of people.

“We owe this to our history ...”

History! I like that word. Say it again!

“The bloody battlefields from our history…”

Ooh bloody battlefields! No, we don’t like those. Marathon, Waterloo, Stalingrad… pah.

“The bloody battlefields from our history have been replaced by…”

Replaced by what, Herman? Tell us!

“… by Brussels negotiating rooms."

Ah, ok.

As Shakespeare movingly should have said, “Let slip the internal memos of Brussels negociating rooms.”

In the same uplifting spirit as dry as dust and unambitious is beautiful I was equally moved today that the Commish has decided, bravely, one day after the US state department, to squeak “solidarity” with the downtrodden masses of Tunisia longing to be free from the European Neighbourhood Policy partner in Brussels negociating rooms Ben Ali. However, foreign affairs spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic, when asked about “solidarity” with democracy movements in other North African countries retorted, "We cannot speculate on situations that are not ongoing." This despite the fact that faced with mad food prices, total lack of work, money, a future, people are in an ongoing situation sort of way burning themselves alive. Oh, and rioting.

Nevertheless -

"We have made our position clear on the situation in Algeria. We are following the situation in Algeria closely. We have called for calm and restraint ... and called on the Algerian authorities to continue meaningful dialogue with all - ”

WIth all what Ms Kocijancic?

"... with all stakeholders."

"Stakeholders" of Algeria, are you listening? With "calm and retraint" get you to a "negociating room". You never know, you may then have an "ongoing situation".