Palace politics: Nicolas Sarkozy (left) and Gordon Brown discuss Europe’s response to the financial crisis last month at the Elysée in Paris

For the European Union, the hour of truth in the financial crisis struck on the morning of September 30 in Dublin. Fifteen days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, arguably the defining moment of the crisis in the US, the Irish government announced that it would guarantee all deposits at six of Ireland’s big financial institutions.