But that same failure was good news for journalists in need of something to write about and for Charles Michel, the European Council president, who gets another week at least to watch his bête noire, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, squirm.
Michel has tried several times to bring about von der Leyen’s downfall but has so far been unsuccessful — making him the Wile E. Coyote to her Roadrunner. Now he has a bit more time to hatch a new plan. Perhaps he could tie von der Leyen to the train tracks like a silent movie villain (assuming that the Belgian rail company doesn’t cancel the incoming train at the last minute for no reason)?
Much more productive was this week’s meeting of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un (are you sure about this? — ed) in which they signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership pact,” which is also what you get when you throw some random management buzzwords at a wall.
That kind of jargon is commonplace here in Brussels. So thank goodness for, er, Hungary, which unveiled “Make Europe Great Again” as the strapline for its upcoming six-month presidency of the Council of the EU.
“Make America Great Again” was of course Donald Trump’s campaign slogan when he successfully campaigned to become U.S. president in 2016 — and Trump is seeking to return to the White House in an election that will happen slap-bang in the middle of Hungary’s presidency. Incidentally, Trump’s campaign slogan this time is merely the sound of him vomiting into a bin after eating too many cheeseburgers.
To put the Hungarian slogan in context, the strapline of the Belgian Council presidency which is about to end was “Protect, Strengthen, Prepare,” which is one notch above “Live, Love, Laugh” on the banality scale. Most Council slogans are similarly awful. In 2022, the French went for “Recovery, power and belonging”, which must surely be the motto of an energy drink.