Look who slithered into town. The Spectator has the details:

Speaking in New York last night, Herman van Rompuy, the President of the EU, did nothing to dispel the idea that Europe’s leaders are out of touch, out of their depth, and shamelessly ambitious. By turns bizarre — the euro wasn’t mentioned for forty minutes — and delusional (“Greece will not default’), the conversation ended on a comic note as Van Rompuy described himself as a “poet lost in politics” or vice-versa. This from a man memorably described as having the charisma of a “damp rag”.

But Van Rompuy has clearly not abandoned hopes that this crisis will turn out to be a “beneficial crisis” after all:

Lest anyone think Euro-federalists have been chastened by the last few months, Van Rompuy went on to declare his fervent commitment to integration. In his eyes, the current crisis is just another opportunity to introduce stronger EU fiscal rules, which, alongside more bailouts, will gradually lead to shared economic governance and interdependency. The end result is European-level “economic governance”, “financial mutualisation” and a Finance Minister “with much more power and influence … [and] ways and means to place greater pressure on member states.”
In London this might seem like the ravings of a madman, but euro-federalists take the long view. As Van Rompuy put it, “on each stage there are difficulties, but there is never a step back; [at some point] you do so much in common it is irreversible.”
After all, who’s going to stop greater Eurozone integration? The French, Belgians and Italians all broadly support more bailouts and integration, perhaps because they know they could be next in line for handouts.
Only the northern Europeans have doubts — Van Rompuy attributed this to their greater “sensitivity to the values of responsibility” — and even there, Germany, the biggest loser in a mutualisation of debts, has crossed one supposed redline after another. And, although Merkel faces a drubbing in upcoming elections, the opposition is even more in favour of integration. So Europe’s leaders — deluded or not — see a clear path toward greater integration. As ever, it involves a bit of brazen defiance of public opinion, but it’s not impossible.

And if it wreaks havoc with the continent’s economy in the meantime, that’s just too bad. Means, end, you know how it goes.