Euro-Spin Update

Following my call at the start of last week for a little more honesty over Europe, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has now provided it. Daniel Hannan writes in today's Telegraph about a letter he has obtained from the European president:

I am clutching in my hot, trembling hands the most extraordinary document I have come across in eight years of Euro-politics. It is a letter from the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to her fellow EU heads of government. In it, she proposes a scheme to bring back the European Constitution under a new name - or, as she artlessly puts it, "to use different terminology without changing the legal substance".

Now this, in itself, is not surprising. Many of us have suspected all along that the Eurocrats would try to bring back their constitution surreptitiously: I have written as much in these pages. What is shocking is the brazenness. Mrs Merkel flagrantly admits that she wants to preserve intact the content of the constitution, making only "the necessary presentational changes".

So, at least she is being honest about her intentions, but it still sounds like spin to me...