It was not the report that made me stop and think but the title that headed the report. “Germany's Merkel wary of French EU vision” and when I actually swallowed what the report was saying I started laughing. oddly the title was coming from a British news agency.

The rest of the article was business as usual, “The French and German leaders are meeting in Berlin to try to narrow their differences over economic policy ahead of an EU summit on Thursday. Chancellor Angela Merkel was initially expected to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week. The delay fuelled speculation about a big rift. Correspondents say France is keen to launch regular summits of euro-zone leaders, but Germany is wary of that.”

Merkel is wary of French EU vision and the rest of us are wary if any of them has any vision for this union that seems to treble under the pressure of finance and social changes. At least they have humour! But let me fist see what vision we are talking about. If you could talk with the 27 leaders you would find out that there are 27 absolutely different visions for the EU, on how the EU should work and what’s the future of the EU. Sometimes these differences are so huge it makes you wander what the hell are they doing on the same union and what the hell are they talking about when they meet.

So let’s see how the leading stars of this Union look at least to an outsider after fifty years of unity, visions and 27 countries at the round table. Britain has one attitude, inspired and founded from Margaret Thatcher, the Thatcher dogma. EU is a bureaucrat’s gathering that spends our money doing nothing. Oddly this is coming from the country with the most established and bureaucratic public sector that can boycott any progress opposes it and according the latest scandals big spender in doing absolutely nothing. Britain’s vision of the EU? And this is not changing doesn’t matter if the Labours or the conservatives are in the lead; EU should stay there as a common market where we can sell our products more expensively than we sell them to others and occasionally use the European partners to do our dirty work! Note that there is no EU decision without a paragraph in the end which expresses the British scepticism or differences.

The French! Another vision or illusion. The French think that they are Europe’s Louis something, an emperor that sits there doing nothing except expressing ideas, protecting arts and occasionally remind us that the emperor not always wears cloths. They don’t say it so openly as the Brits but they use EU to sell their products expensively to their partners and finally EU is a good field to say no to anything the British suggest. Their vision for the future EU? Everybody should speak French!

The Germans! Their aims, visions and needs are combined in the rhythm of …ein swei, drei! They want all EU to march in that rhythm. Scholastics and formalists they want everybody to follow the rules as long they are the ones who wrote the rules. And if they don’t agree with the rules …they rewrite them! Chancellor Merkel has harmed the European Union more than anybody before. Her dilatoriness has deepened the recession and her non-acting will be something the Germans will have to deal with painfully in the years to come.

The Scandinavians obviously live in another EU, or in another planet and the south in another hell. But please let’s not forget the new members. They have visions as well. Poland’s leadership dreamt for long to make the country the 51st USA state and since they failed they decided to join EU and stay there to guard America’s interests in Europe. Their vision for the future is to see the end of Russia if not see the Polish flag weaving in the middle of Kremlin.

Don’t worry; even the candidates have plans and visions. Turkey would like to see the stars of the EU flag replaced by crescents and the blue becoming red with rivers of Euros to overload the country. So should be no worry of the French vision, the rest might be even worst. If we are still talking about a union!