Some things seem to go on forever. For half a century the British have been wrestling with the question of their relations with the rest of continental Europe and the struggle continues unabated and still unsolved.
The immediate issue is one of personalities, which always engages public interest and makes good media copy.
With the long debated Lisbon Treaty about to be finally signed by a reluctant Czech president, the treaty provisions become European law, and at the center of them is the requirement for appointment of a new semi-permanent president of the European Union Council of Ministers, who will inevitably be labeled the president of Europe, and a new EU foreign affairs representative, who will inevitably be labeled Europe's foreign minister.