There are all sorts of threats to the European Union’s unity, but something tells me that the biggest threat isn’t the Visegrad group.  This appears to be a view not shared by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France.

Speaking after the October 29-30 EU summit in Brussels, Sarkozy criticised the fact that the leaders of the four Visegrad countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia - had held a pre-summit meeting to co-ordinate their positions.  “If they were to meet regularly before each Council, that would raise some questions,” Sarkozy said.

Would it, really?  When I put this question the other day to a high-ranking official from a Visegrad country, he replied with a Sarkozy-like grimace on his face.  The Visegrad group was, he said, as harmless as other EU regional subgroups, such as the Nordic trio (Denmark, Finland and Sweden), the Benelux countries (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands), the Iberians (Portugal and Spain) and Club Aristotle (Cyprus and Greece).

In truth, the most curious thing about the Visegrad group is that it still exists.  No sooner had it been set up in 1991 after the fall of communism than, like some mysterious mitteleuropäisch cell, it mutated from three members into four with the break-up of Czechoslovakia.  It held together largely because of the belief that strength in solidarity would accelerate the integration of the four into western security and economic structures - the EU and Nato.

But the strains inside the group have never entirely gone away.  Poland, the biggest member, tends to see itself as a kind of big brother, with a wider view on the world than the rest.  The Poles no longer want to be treated in the EU as a mere regional player, a country defined by its proximity to places like Belarus and Ukraine.  They want to be at the top table, next to France, Germany and the UK.

The Czech Republic tends to be regarded as the smarty-pants of the four, a perception reinforced by the Czech EU presidency in the first half of this year.  The Czechs spent an awful lot of time telling everyone how they were superior to their neighbours, because their far-sighted policies had enabled them to escape the worst of the financial crisis.  This know-all attitude didn’t exactly endear them to their EU partners.

Slovakia had a bad reputation in the 1990s because of the misrule of Vladimir Meciar, the former prime minister.  But it then transformed itself so fast that it is now the only Visegrad country in the eurozone.  However, there are continuing tensions over Slovakia’s ethnic Hungarian minority.

Hungary was hit hardest by the financial crisis.  Its neighbours gave Hungary the cold shoulder in February when the government in Budapest proposed a €180bn emergency aid programme to recapitalise the banking systems of central and eastern Europe and reschedule foreign currency debt.

This in itself is proof, if any were needed, that Sarkozy’s suspicions are exaggerated.  But then again, French opinions about the EU’s former communist countries have a rich history.  After all, who was it who told the central and eastern Europeans at the start of the Iraq war that they had “missed a good opportunity to shut up”?

Step forward, ex-president Jacques Chirac.

As European Union leaders gather for their two-day summit in Brussels, the word is that the British government’s effort to have Tony Blair selected as the EU’s first full-time president is running into trouble.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just finished a round of afternoon discussions with other European socialist leaders, trying to persuade them that Blair deserves the job.  The talks did not go well.

Martin Schulz, chairman of the European Parliament’s socialist group, made it plain that he and many other Continental socialists didn’t want the EU presidency to go to a Briton.  The reason?  The UK is semi-detached from Europe, not in the euro area, not in the Schengen zone permitting border-free travel around the EU, etc, etc.

Moreover, the socialists think they have a better chance of getting in one of their own people as the EU’s next foreign policy high representative than as the first full-time president.  With 20 or so of the EU’s 27 governments controlled by the centre-right, they reason, national leaders are bound to pick someone from their own political family for the EU presidency.

Of course, you could argue that some centre-right leaders - Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi comes to mind - are perfectly happy to see Blair in the job.

But maybe not in France and Germany.  French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angel Merkel met for dinner in Paris on Wednesday night, and word is reaching reporters in Brussels that the two leaders were lukewarm about Blair’s candidacy.  If true, that would come close to polishing him off - or, rather, it would enable him to say he had never been a candidate in the first place.

There can be few presidential campaigns that have kicked off with the declaration “I am not a dwarf”.  But this is what Le Monde quotes Jean-Claude Juncker today as saying in the interview in which Luxembourg’s prime minister reveals he would consider being a candidate for the European Union’s presidency “if the call came”.

I have interviewed Juncker and seen him in action more than a few times over the years, and I can confirm that he is not a dwarf - though I have heard other disparaging terms applied to him that need not concern us here.  What most interests me is the enormous gulf in perceptions of Juncker’s potential candidacy between the UK and certain mainland European countries.

In UK government circles, Juncker is seen as a non-starter for two reasons.  First, the president’s job will be to represent the EU on the world stage, especially - according to one view - when sudden crises flare up, such as the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.  During that conflict, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France represented the EU as the holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, and even he - one of the EU’s true big hitters - found his negotiations with the Russians extremely tough going.  Juncker, as the leader of the EU’s 26th biggest country (population 500,000 out of a EU total of 500m), would in the British view just not be taken seriously enough as the EU’s voice in such a crisis.

Secondly, Luxembourg represents a country with a profound commitment to deep European integration, something that is anathema to the British.  It is the same objection that caused the UK to reject the candidacy of Guy Verhoftstadt, the former Belgian premier, for the European Commission presidency in 2004.

On the Continent, especially in some of the EU’s western European member-states and in certain smaller countries, Juncker is seen as an entirely credible candidate.  Members of the German Bundestag and foreign policy establishment admire him, though it is open to question whether that view is shared by Chancellor Angela Merkel.  In the end, she is the only person in Berlin whose opinion matters, since she will make Germany’s choice.

As was pointed out by Le Monde’s interviewer, Juncker appears to have fallen in Sarkozy’s estimation over the past year because of the Luxembourger’s alleged inability to rise to the occasion when the global financial crisis struck Europe.  Accurate or not, this observation prompted a smooth reply from Juncker on Sarkozy’s brilliance as the EU’s president from July to December 2008: ”Europe has never been led with such perspicacity as under the French presidency.”

I feel pretty sure that such compliments won’t ever make Sarkozy support Juncker as the EU’s first full-time president, since the French head of state’s own six months in charge of the EU gave a good idea of the kind of dynamic leadership that he thinks Europe needs.

But that probably won’t upset Juncker, since he is a canny politician whose instincts surely told him long ago that he would never get the job and that the most he could hope for would be to sabotage Tony Blair’s candidacy.

Even before he was elected as president of France in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy made it crystal-clear that he didn’t want Turkey to join the European Union - ever.  Now concerns are growing in Brussels that Sarkozy is contemplating a formal Franco-German initiative next year to offer Turkey a “privileged partnership” instead of, as now, the long-term prospect of full EU membership.

The idea of a “privileged partnership” has been around for a good few years.  Sarkozy likes it, and so does Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic party.  It also appeals to Angela Merkel, the CDU chancellor.  However, Merkel has up to now taken a nuanced approach, recognising that Germany, along with other EU countries, recognised Turkey as an official candidate for membership in 1999.  A responsible country cannot just wriggle out of agreements made in good faith, Merkel believes. 

The difference now is that, after last month’s German election, the Social Democrats - more sympathetic to Turkey’s aspirations - are out of government and have been replaced by the Free Democrats, whose position on Turkey is more ambiguous.  The balance of opinion in Berlin is changing.  Sarkozy may try to seize the opportunity to line up the new German government behind the concept of the ”privileged partnership”, according to EU policymakers.

Needless to say, Turkey would dismiss an offer along these lines as an insult.  There is no legal foundation for a “privileged partnership”, says Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief negotiator on EU matters.   You are either in the EU or not in the EU.  You cannot be half-pregnant, Bagis once told me.

The US would undoubtedly dislike such an initiative, too.  Ignoring criticism that it’s none of their business, both Democratic and Republican administrations have always encouraged the EU to accept Turkey as a full member.

Alas, Turkey’s EU membership bid is in serious trouble, anyway.  The European Commission tried to put a brave face on matters this week in its annual report on Turkey.  But the inescapable truth is that out of the 35 negotiation chapters, or policy areas, that a country needs to complete in order to join the EU, Turkey has opened 11, of which only one has been provisionally closed.  Another 12 chapters have been either formally frozen by the EU, or informally blocked by France with support from others opposed to Turkey’s bid.  The entire process risks grinding to a halt.

In December EU leaders will discuss Turkey’s failure to heed their calls to open its ports and airports to ships and aircraft from the Greek Cypriot-controlled government of Cyprus.  In theory they could take a harsh line and more or less abandon Turkey’s EU entry talks.

I doubt this will happen - Sweden, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency until December 31, is friendly towards Turkey, and many other countries think it would be crazy to adopt such a position just when negotiations on a Cyprus settlement are reaching a critical moment.

But towards the end of the first half of 2010, the picture may well look different.  April is the key month.  If the Cyprus talks are deadlocked by the time of next April’s Turkish Cypriot presidential election, and if he can get Germany on board, Sarkozy may be tempted to unveil his “privileged partnership” proposal.

Ask a minister in a European Union government what post their country hopes to get in the next European Commission, and the response is the same every time - something important to do with the economy.  Well, you can’t blame people for not hurrying to step into the shoes of Leonard Orban, the Romanian commissioner for multilingualism.

On the other hand, there aren’t enough top economic jobs for Commission president José Manuel Barroso to satisfy everyone.  Truth to tell, the Commission looks too big with 27 members.  But that’s the way it is, and that’s the way it will stay under the EU’s Lisbon treaty.  A guaranteed seat on the Commission seems a simple, visible way of making a country’s citizens feel connected to the EU.

The main four economic portfolios in Barroso’s outgoing Commission have been - in no particular order - competition, the internal market, trade, and economic and monetary affairs.  These have been occupied by the Netherlands, Ireland, Britain and Spain respectively.  By contrast, France has held two lesser posts (first transport, then justice, freedom and security), and Germany has dropped almost completely out of sight in the post of enterprise and industry.

As Barroso puts together his new team, France and Germany are in the hunt for really big jobs and feel no doubt that they deserve them because of their relatively diminished status in the outgoing Commission.  The French and Germans want to play a much more direct role in shaping the EU’s economic and financial policies as the EU struggles to emerge from recession, rewrites its rules on financial regulation and defends its industries in world markets.  France is said to desire the internal market job on the Commission, and Germany would like something equally prominent.

All this is causing some nervousness in Britain and a few like-minded countries that the next Commission will be less free market-oriented than its predecessor.  In response I would make two points.  First, this is the spirit of the age - you can expect nothing less after the recent near-meltdown of the western world’s financial system and the associated regulatory failures.

But secondly, it just does not follow that to give a top economic dossier to France or Germany means that the Commission will be wrenched in the direction of some manically illiberal étatisme and fiendishly pro-Volkswagen industrial policy.  To take one excellent example, Pascal Lamy, the Frenchman who served as trade commissioner from 1999 to 2004, was a robust defender of free trade and now is head of the World Trade Organisation.  The same would be true if the next French commissioner were someone like Christine Lagarde, who at present is President Nicolas Sarkozy’s finance minister (she is still a possible choice, some think, even though it looks as if Sarkozy is going for Michel Barnier).

EU commissioners, at their best, are like US Supreme Court justices.  When a president picks a judge to sit on America’s highest court, everyone’s first thought is, “Here we go, a blatant political appointment designed to push the Court in a certain ideological direction”.  Then, more often than not, the nominee causes a surprise by putting the court’s interests first and acting independently.  So it can be at the Commission, where the institutional culture of independence from political pressure is stronger than many on the outside assume.

With Czech President Vaclav Klaus the chief remaining obstacle to final ratification of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty, there has been a fair amount of loose talk about how the Czech Republic could - or should - be punished if Klaus refuses to sign it.  On the one hand, supporters of the treaty say it is intolerable that the EU’s eight-year effort at redesigning its institutions should be sabotaged at the finishing post.  If Klaus carries on his delaying tactics much longer, they warn, the Czechs should be denied a seat in the next European Commission.

On the other hand, opponents of the Lisbon treaty are painting the same scenario for quite different reasons.  Just you watch, they say.  The EU will reveal itself as an intolerant, anti-democratic machine, whipping the Czechs merely because they have the temerity to resist the imposition of a treaty they fear undermines their sovereignty.

Most, if not all, of this is not serious.  Some leaders, especially French President Nicolas Sarkozy, are impatient with Klaus.  But EU governments as a whole are not threatening to punish the Czechs.  After all, the Czech parliament has approved the treaty and the Czech government is in favour of it.  Klaus is more and more isolated.

More importantly, the EU is an organisation whose first instinct is to do things by forging a consensus, not by crushing dissent.  Pace Klaus, it is not the Soviet Union reinvented.  The EU’s culture of consensus is both its weakness and, at times like this, its strength.

The EU learnt a sobering lesson in 2000, when Austria formed a coalition government including the far-right Freedom Party of the late Jörg Haider.  The EU’s other 14 member-states punished Austria by downgrading relations and freezing contacts with Austrian ministers.  It seemed a clever idea at the time.  But it ended up producing the opposite effect to that intended, by making a martyr of the Austrian government and by stiffening the patriotic pride of the Austrian people (not just Austrians on the right, either).

Moreover, the EU contains an awful lot of small and medium-sized countries, especially in central and eastern Europe, which suspect that, if ever the Czech Republic were punished for stepping out of line, their turn would come, sooner or later, over some other issue.

One final point.  Many intemperate calls to punish the Czechs have come from the European Parliament.  And it is indeed true that, if Klaus is still holding out when the parliament conducts hearings for the new European Commission, some MEPs may give the Czech nominee a particularly hard grilling.  In extremis, they could even refuse to give the entire Commission the green light because of the Klaus problem.

If they do, someone should remind them that their legislature just got elected on the smallest and most dismal turnout - 43 per cent - of any European Parliament election in history.

Say what you like about Nicolas Sarkozy, he certainly knows how to capture your attention.  At a meeting in the Elysée Palace last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it appears that the French president recommended in no uncertain terms that Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline foreign minister, should be dropped from the Israeli cabinet and replaced with Tzipi Livni, the less abrasive opposition leader.

“Grave and unacceptable!” fumed Lieberman’s spokesman - how dare the leader of one democracy interfere in the internal affairs of another?

Here in Stockholm, where Sweden has just started its six-month European Union presidency, there are mixed views on Sarkozy.  On the one hand, Swedish government ministers are the first to recognise that, when France held the EU presidency at a critical moment in world affairs in the second half of 2008, Sarkozy - within the limits of the EU’s possibilities - provided vigorous and effective leadership.

On the other hand, the Swedes are more than a little suspicious that Sarkozy may be trying to delay José Manuel Barroso’s reappointment as European Commission president, in order to put pressure on him to appoint a French politician to a top portfolio in the next Commission, due to be picked in a few months’ time.  Whatever portfolio the French are after, goes the thinking, it is unlikely to be good news for Europe’s commitment to competition and free trade.

Well, the French aren’t the only ones playing this game.  I have spoken over recent weeks with representatives from most of the 27 EU countries, and I have yet to hear anyone say the job their country wants is that of commissioner for multilingualism (held at present by, er, Romania’s Leonard Orban).

Surely the truth is that what Sarkozy said to Netanyahu about Lieberman is what most EU leaders think - but don’t have the guts to say even privately to their Israeli counterparts.  Der Spiegel, the German magazine, calls Lieberman a “pragmatic thug” - and that is one of the kinder descriptions one comes across in Europe.

It strikes me as infantile to complain that Sarkozy is “interfering” in the internal affairs of another country, when every public posture the EU has struck since Lieberman’s appointment as foreign minister makes it perfectly plain that the EU thinks Livni would be infinitely preferable to Lieberman.  The EU may be right or may be wrong about that - but at least with Sarkozy you know where you are.

The last time that a dispute between Madrid and Brussels seized the international spotlight was in 1568 - and boy, was it big.  That was when the Spanish rulers of the Low Countries sparked the 80-year-long Dutch Revolt by executing Counts Egmont and Horne on the Grand’ Place of what is today the Belgian capital.

This month, another quarrel between Spain and Belgium broke out.  Admittedly, it’s less serious, and for the moment it’s stayed behind closed doors.  But in the interests of transparency, and because the squabble tells you rather a lot about the way the European Union operates, I shall share the details with you.

Karel De Gucht, Belgium’s foreign minister, has written an indignant letter to Miguel Angel Moratinos, his Spanish counterpart, complaining about a stitch-up at an EU operation known as the Union for the Mediterranean.  The UfM is a pet project of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, aimed at reinvigorating relations between the 27-nation EU and its North African and Middle Eastern neighbours.

When they launched the UfM last year, the EU and its neighbours agreed that it should have a co-presidency, with one EU country and one non-EU country sharing the post.  First up were France and Egypt.  No problem there.  But it was never officially spelled out who should represent the EU after France.  Belgium, which will hold the EU’s six-month rotating presidency in the second half of 2010, thought that under EU rules it would be a logical choice.

So, not surprisingly, De Gucht was most unhappy to discover, from a letter that Moratinos had written to his French and Egyptian colleagues, that Spain and France appeared to have reached a private deal without telling anyone else in the EU (or, at least, without telling Belgium).  Under this arrangement, France was to hold the job for two years and then hand over the reins to Spain, which would hold it for the following two years.

No doubt Moratinos thinks Spain is entitled to have the UfM’s co-presidency because it will hold the EU presidency in the first half of 2010.  But for two years?  The polite language of European diplomacy can scarcely hide De Gucht’s displeasure.  “I confess that I was really amazed,” he writes in his letter to Moratinos, arguing that the Franco-Spanish deal violates fundamental EU rules that set out how the bloc must be represented on the world stage.

This incident reveals many things about the EU.  It reveals how trivial squabbles constantly interfere with the efficient conduct of a common EU foreign policy.  It reveals how big EU countries (France and Spain) think they have the right to push around small ones (Belgium).  It reveals an EU obsession with process rather than substance.

And, lastly, it reveals how, all too often, EU governments look like mice fighting over a piece of cheese, while outside Europe the world is full of large, fierce cats.