Interesting comments yesterday from a senior member of the Project for a New American Century. Discussing the EU’s military ambitions, he scoffed at he idea that Colin Powell had been in any way on Europe’s side. “Despite what the Europeans seemed to think, Powell was never in favour of the European position”, he said, “In fact he did not like Europe at all, he hated being NATO commander”.

This it seems was mainly down to the way that the EU members of NATO would come to every policy discussion with a pre-defined joint position, or in some cases a pre-defined split, rather than arriving at the discussion table with any form of open mind. This would make strategy discussions dry and unproductive and merely statements of solid position. This in turn would mean meetings were sterile and unproductive.