“We have gone from misunderstanding, or almost standoffishness in the early days, to a warming to each other as the end comes closer.”
“For many years his chief cleric, Alcuin, a Jacques Delors of the day, was a monk from York, who no doubt shook his head at the standoffishness of his compatriots. And how Charlemagne loved the law and laying it down.”
“German standoffishness toward the EU is now based in law: a 2009 ruling by Germany's Constitutional Court allowed it to ratify the Lisbon treaty but limited further transfers of power to Brussels.”
