Germany Wins, the EU Loses

I have been observing the European Union for a while, but I have rarely seen a political victory as total and far-reaching as that of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last week. As one seasoned observer put it, Ms Merkel was the only one in the European Council who knew what she wanted. And she got exactly that. She got an amendment to the Lisbon treaty, which says that any crisis mechanism can only be triggered as a last resort option.