Delusional, demeaned and despondent

The EU's vaunted Foriegn policy is in the doldrums, despite the fact that they are just about to have a whole big shindig in Brussels to celebrate it.

Discussions on how to give new momentum to the EU's external policies will be held in the presence of foreign ministers.

Part of the show to Foriegn Ministers (reminding me of Wellington showing the Chartist leaders the efficacy of the Royal Artillery in 1848) was supposed to be the announcement that the EU was going to be given all sorts of rights at the UN. However as Bruno Waterfield shows us in the Telegraph, that is not quite what has happened.

Arab, African, Latin American and Caribbean countries rallied against EU proposals to assume similar rights and powers to a fully fledged nation state at the UN general assembly during a vote in New York on Monday night.

Please note that it wasn't the UK that blocked the ambitions of the overweaning Eurocrats, but a bunch of national tiddlers.

And what has the EU to say about this parlous state of affairs,

Lady Ashton said she hoped to overcome the opposition by explaining how the Lisbon Treaty had created new institutions to give the EU a more collective voice after she travels to New York on Sunday for meetings of the UN General Assembly next week.

"It gives us a real opportunity to talk to those countries who want to hear a little bit more about what it means," she said.

"We are simply asking for the fact of Lisbon to be recognised."

European diplomats have admitted to being "embarrassed" and having underestimated the lack of sympathy from other countries for giving special rights to Mr Van Rompuy and Lady Ashton.

And do note what Lisbon means to the EU, rather than what our own politicains tell us.

To the EU Lisbon is

"a fact"

that should, in its own mind give it the same status as a nation state.