It is not often that we find ourselves dealing with a story that we first reported on in July 2004, which is still running unabated.

This is the eternal saga of what is known as the “VW Law”, whereby German <em>Länder</em> maintain “golden shares” in individual enterprises – Volkswagen being one – thus preventing their take-over.

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You say in other postings that the sceptics have failed, but maybe the damage is out of sight and the only way we will know the EU is defeated is after it crumbles from the centre and break into pieces. Whilst the USSR was being challenged by Regan there was little sign that it was about to break up, it was only later understood that Regan's policies had worked and the empire collapsed from internal stresses.

The scepticism that was nurtured in the UK during the 80 and 90 is now well established right across the EU, perhaps it is the effects of that scepticism that is now manifesting itself in the popularist politics on the Continent. Our politicians may not want to be the ones to administer the coup de grace when it comes, it is much better manners to leave that job to the Continentals who were much more deeply involved in making the monster and can take the responsibility to finish it off when the time is right.

When push comes to shove, so seems it, EU member states will act in, or at least endeavour to protect, their national interests...except the suicidal UK.
I was recently discussing a local problem here with one of the indigenes, which was clearly flouting EU directives...a misdemeanour he acknowledged and added: "But this is Portugal."
Let's face it...we've lost it.

I've got an idea that when the notion of the EU has been rubbished by experience and is clearly falling apart and not taken seriously by any other country, its last outpost will be the UK, with a government still unquestioningly keen on it and a sullenly resentful populace.

You could be right ... I've long suspected that, when the EU collapses, it will be left with a membership of one - the UK - with our politicians and officials religiously implementing and enforcing EU directives right to the last. The "jobsworth" mentality that Churchill highlighted existed in the British psyche long before the EU came along and it seems as if the EU has simply brought to the surface (or reinforced) a nascent tendency.