I’m in Brussels where the only news is Obama’s cancellation of a trip to Madrid to join an annual EU-US confab. The FT’s Gideon Rachman explains the anxiety caused by the decision:
‘There is no doubt that the Spanish government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU (You thought it had been abolished? Fooled you!), will treat this as a bitter blow. The Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero was royally snubbed by George W. Bush and so it was really important to him to underline that he has a great relationship with the sainted Obama. (…)
The Spanish are not the only Europeans feeling snubbed by Obama. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, was enraged when – on a recent trip to Washington – Obama failed to schedule a lunch with him, and the Commission president was fobbed off with Joe Biden.’
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