It may prove good short-term politics. At this week's European Union summit, President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder succeeded in diluting both Brussels' controversial cross-border services plan and the stability pact. And perhaps this will help Mr Chirac with his now very dicey referendum on the EU constitution on May 29, and Mr Schröder with the difficult election that his Social Democrats face a week earlier in their heartland of North Rhine Westphalia. However, they may come to rue beating up on Brussels.

Not only have the French and German leaders continued the trend of big EU states dictating to the Commission, to the dismay and anger of smaller and newer states which naturally look to the EU executive for protection and leadership. They also risk stirring and legitimising europhobic passions that may come to poison the EU debate in their own countries. Messrs Chirac and Schröder have only to look at what has happened in Britain to see the danger.