Like it or not (and he probably doesn’t) Tony Blair appears to be under no illusions as to the difficulties resulting from the current divisions between the US and some EU countries. At a press conference today he referred to the need for a “reckoning” about relations between America and Europe (by ‘Europe’, he clearly meant the Franco-German entente) once the war was over. He also noted that “when people really sit down and reflect upon the interest of Europe they would regard the idea of sacrificing the transatlantic alliance as madness, as it would be – absolute madness.” Blair is right, of course. The problem, however, is that Chirac and Schroeder are not interested in ‘Europe’ as such. They are interested in securing Franco-German control over Europe – and that is not the same thing at all.