Richard Corbett, the former dire, bean-counting Labour MEP has slated the Hungarian Presidency in the current edition of European Voice. 

I was curious to read your special report on the “Hungarian Presidency of the EU” (16 December 2010-5 January 2011). There is, of course, no such thing! 

Hungary merely chairs one of the EU institutions, not the EU as a whole. You (and others) may wish to elevate the Council (and its president) above all the others, but I dare say that the presidents of the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament may have other views. 

The rotating presidency of the Council was always an over-rated function. It is short-term, without executive powers, and inherits a pre-set agenda. Since the Lisbon treaty, its prime minister no longer chairs the European Council, its foreign minister no longer speaks for the EU on the world stage, nor even chairs the foreign-affairs configuration of the Council. 

Special supplements about new member states are welcome, but do not imply that they are suddenly in charge!

Van Rompuy's website lists Corbett's responsibilities as,

• Institutional Issues
• Relations with the European Parliament and the National Parliaments
• Relations with the Committee of Regions and the Economic and Social Committee

Which carries the suggestion that he should know a little bit about diplomacy. Obviously not. I initially wondered if he was a tad tired and emotional when he wrote the above.

I mean - is this an official statement from Van Rompuy's office to the Hungarian Presidency? And if so, if I was the speaker of the Hungarian Országház I would be demanding his head on a plate.

However that being said, and despite the mean spirited way in which he says it, I cannot believe he was really drunk, and I do believe that he is representing his master's voice. He can hardly suggest that he isn't acting in an official capacity after all. And what he says isn't in itself inaccurate, just nasty. And if anybody knows the dark corners of institutional wrangling it is Corbett.

Van Rompuy, as a Belgian, has a hatred of functional nation states. The Council of Ministers of which Hungary now holds the Presidency is a thorn in the side of the federalists who he represents and his contempt for national interest and the approach that encapsulates the actions of democratic nation states brings him out in hives.