It’s currently Italy’s turn to hold the EU’s rotating presidency. As such, it is responsible for moving forward with the Union’s agenda – and one of the main items on that agenda is the attempt to secure agreement on the draft EU constitution. The Brussels flack who claims to be Sweden’s foreign minister is now arguing that Berlusconi’s government is not well positioned to push this forward because it is, supposedly, a government “that isn’t very deeply rooted in the rest of Europe”. While no one should shed any tears if the EU’s despotic constitution runs into difficulty, the Swede’s comments are revealing. Contrary to some of the wishful thinking over here, Berlusconi is a supporter of deeper EU integration, so that can’t be the problem. So what is? Well, it’s not difficult to suspect that it’s Berlusconi’s support of the free market and Atlanticism, beliefs that apparently mean that the Italian premier is not a ‘real’ European.

The EU’s ideology becomes, it seems, ever more intolerant.