An old rule. Place greater emphasis on the difficulties and the failures than on the successes, this is an old rule of journalism, and it is applied with particular rigour to European affairs. Thus, it is not surprising that the first autonomous EU military mission, in Macedonia, has received less column inches than the umpteenth opinion from anybody on the war in Iraq. Romano Prodi himself understood that this event could only be 'relegated to the backdrop', while regretting the...