15/06/2014
We all saw the picture of David Cameron and Angela Merkel being rowed across a Swedish lake,
writes Christopher Booker, supposedly so that Mr Cameron could persuade Mrs Merkel not to allow the dim "arch-federalist Jean-Claude Juncker" to become the European Commission's new president.
What we were not told was that these photo-opportunities are an old Swedish tradition. A similar picture showed the then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev rowing across the same lake in 1964.
The difference was that, whereas today's leaders had to be seen wearing lifejackets, 50 years ago the three men in a boat just wore suits. It would have been a good illustration for Booker's piece last week on how the world has changed since D-Day, suggesting that, where our leaders were once ''Men from Mars", today we have only "Men from Venus".
"Europe" is nothing if not theatre. Mr Cameron wants to impress upon everyone, particularly in the wake of the Euro elections, that he intends to see the EU "reformed", reducing its powers (hence his bid to block Juncker as the European Parliament's choice for that top job).
He thereby hopes that he can mop up the UKIP vote and win next year's general election by promising that he will negotiate a "new relationship" between Britain and the EU, then lead the "yes" campaign in the 2017 "in-out" referendum.
Of course, this is all just theatre. Mr Cameron knows that if he could get anything more than a few cosmetic concessions from the EU, it would require a new treaty, which any one of the 27 other countries could veto. He knows that even if Mr Juncker dropped out, he would only be replaced by some other "arch-federalist".
Furthermore, Cameron knows that, whatever Mrs Merkel may say about Juncker in public, she doesn't want him either, any more than she likes the attempt by MEPs to claim that they, rather than the European Council, can propose a new commission president, flatly in breach of treaty rules.
Behind the theatre, the reality of what is going on was better reflected in the minutes of the recent "2,087th meeting" of the outgoing commission. First they expressed satisfaction that, despite all those votes for "anti-European parties", the recent Euro elections produced an overwhelming majority for mainstream parties favouring more integration.
Then, in referring to a briefing for the new commission president, it was just the same old familiar story: the EU's priorities must be to promote "growth and jobs" (at which they have been so successful in the eurozone); more action on climate change; a common energy policy; more EU powers over "justice and home affairs"; and an extension of the EU's External Action Service (which has been so brilliantly effective in sorting out the Ukraine and the Middle East).
Nothing has changed, concludes Booker. There is no way Mr Cameron is going to get his "reformed EU", or his treaty. Like so much else, it is all theatre â or, as we used to say, just make-believe, smoke and mirrors.
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