The crisis of the European Union is gathering pace, several countries within it face insoluble economic distress, the euro is unlikely to survive this year, a number of banks are technically bankrupt – and what’s been exercising the great men with their hands on destiny? The chocolate bunny made by the famous Swiss firm of Lindt, that’s what.
The great men have been examining this chocolate bunny, and they don’t like the way it is wrapped in gold foil and has a red ribbon round its neck. This is “not sufficiently different,” so they say, from the wrappings of other chocolate products. Apparently Lindt has failed to establish the bunny’s “inherent distinctive character.” And the European Court of Justice accordingly issues a fatwa.
Imagine it. Grown men, highly paid bureaucrats, have laboured through years of committee meetings, travelling from 27 countries to attend, amassing files with pleas and recommendations for and against, when it’s all about concealed protectionism for chocolate bunnies that aren’t as popular as Swiss. Hitherto their masterstroke had been the specification of the permissible curvature of the banana. Ordinary people can respond only with a belly laugh – and this may be the only joyful thing to remember when the death throes of this whole preposterous experiment are over at last.