So much for Europe’s single market. Bank failures exposed the European Union’s inability to co-ordinate financial rescues centrally. The crisis over General Motors’ European operations – principally Germany’s Opel and the UK’s Vauxhall – has now laid bare the lack of a framework to take industrial decisions on a pan-European basis.

Brussels, barring warnings that any state aid must meet EU rules, has been absent. So, since it will provide the lion’s share of loan guarantees to any Opel saviour, Germany – together with GM itself – is behind the wheel. However difficult in an election year, Berlin should favour the optimal European industrial solution rather than the one it believes protects most German jobs in the short term.