When politicians talk of a “European spirit” they are not usually referring to vodka. Yet the potent, clear drink is at the heart of a dispute over European values – and money – that will be played out next week in the European parliament.

MEPs will vote on what ingredients can be used to make vodka – and the signs are that those from producing countries will be defeated.

Alex Stubb, a Finnish centre-right MEP, says that would break a promise made when his country and Sweden entered the EU that the national drink would receive similar protection to wine, whisky, rum and grappa, which all have a strict limit on ingredients.

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Spare a thought for poor Guenter Verheugen. The European Union’s industry commissioner has been out of the spotlight for months now, giving few press conferences and generally doing very little to create headlines, applause or criticism. Even his favourite policy issue - the unglamourous better regulation agenda - has been kept at a mercifully low profile recently.

The next thing you know, he’s being compared to Paul Wolfowitz.

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To paraphrase my colleague Gideon Rachman, gay rights and green values are the motherhood and apple pie of the European Union. Yet this, along with many other things, may be changing after the influx of eight former communist countries in 2004.

Poland has led the charge against these cosy "European values". Its current populist government has talked of bringing back the death penalty and launched an all-out assault on perceived communist collaborators. Other officials have the corrupting influence of western children’s TV in their sights.

Ewa Sowinska, a children’s rights watchdog, said last week she would have psychologists investigate whether Tinky Winky, the handbag-carrying Teletubby, was gay. “I noticed [he] has a lady’s purse but I didn’t realised he’s a boy…later I learned that this may have a homosexual undertone,” she told a news magazine.

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