Charlemagne. Could do better

The annual report of the European Union as a club

"THE past six months have seen considerable progress at the club, even though it has been somewhat harder to keep up standards since our French and Dutch members voted not to endorse the proposed new articles of association last year. Partly because of this, the agenda is disappointingly thin for this week's full board meeting, chaired by our Austrian colleague (Sachertorte will be served).

The club's main function is to provide level playing fields on which members can compete against each other in friendly matches and occasionally field teams to take on clubs elsewhere in the world. We suffered our tenth successive defeat in our yearly attempt to wrest the Lisbon Cup back from our friends at the American Capitalist Association. Our 15-0 thrashing at the hands of the Mandarin Traders' Club has led to demands for withdrawal from this fixture (Mr Mandelson has been asked to look into complaints of unfair competition). But at home, our Nordic members' style of play was particularly admired.

The committee is continuing to make improvements to the clubhouse. In May, our council approved a new service contract for the cooks, waiters and cleaners--the first foray into services in the club's history. Some members, especially those who joined in 2004, demanded a more comprehensive contract but the committee hopes that the one we negotiated will improve levels of service, which have been lagging. A few members still want the club's Polish plumbers sent home. Members should note that the use of mobile phones is encouraged throughout club premises and that the committee is seeking to reduce the cost of making calls. We are also buying more television sets for the sedentary members who prefer watching football to playing it.

Upgrading the clubhouse has required some modernisation of our finances. The budget adopted by the board of governors last December was finally approved in May, and will come into force next year. Worries that the new financial arrangements could penalise our newer members have proved unfounded. The executive committee believes that the budget will set the club on a sound financial basis for the next seven years, without any increase in fees. Some members, however, argue that there should have been a more thorough financial review; and our British colleagues, in particular, complain that too much money is still spent on the gardens and fields. To keep them happy, the executive committee will look at this again in 2008.

When the articles of association were rejected, many feared that the club's ability to keep the facilities for members up to scratch would be impaired. The committee is happy to report that this has not happened. Instead, we propose to expand our authority into three areas. First, the club at considerable expense will install a new heating system, which will, we believe, produce better results in the long term than the current exclusive contracts many of us have with Mr Gazprom from Russia, about whom there have been several complaints. Next, the committee would like members' approval to a streamlining of the arrangements for negotiating reciprocal arrangements with foreign clubs. Meetings with others can be embarrassing because our delegation often has more people than chairs: the executive committee secretary, the official responsible for ties with other clubs, representatives of the board of governors and so on.

Lastly, the committee has been alarmed by a recent crime wave. We are also concerned about members' reluctance to report suspects to the committee and to other members. We are seeking an improved security system for the clubhouse, and we ask members, if they have any information regarding suspected burglars, in particular, please to share it with the committee, and not keep it to themselves.

The committee is pleased to say that the club remains as popular as ever with outside applicants. We have received one new application for membership this year (from Montenegro). The committee is to decide in November when to extend full membership rights to our country cousins in Romania and Bulgaria. The committee has also begun to canvass members' opinion on pending applications from Turkey and Croatia, though it regrets to say that some of these opinions are negative. It was only with great difficulty that we managed to persuade members from Cyprus not to blackball our Turkish friends--or, at least, not yet.

As members can see, the list of achievements for the past year is long and should help to moderate recent complaints about low morale and a lack of direction in the club. It may be reasonable to disagree with some of the club's decisions--as many members do--but it would surely be wrong to complain that nothing has been done at all.

The sting in the tail

Even so, the committee would like to conclude its annual report with a word of caution. Many members argued that, without the articles of association, the club would not be able to do anything. That fear has proved wrong. Now, the same members tend to say that, without the articles, any decisions that are made may damage the club's long-term interests, since partial progress may make it harder to implement the articles of association in full. The committee believes that this fear, too, is unwarranted.

Sometimes it is desirable for the club to have a grand project to keep its members interested--such as our special system of club payments, introduced in 2001, or the big membership drive that bore fruit in 2004. But sometimes, as John Calhoun, a member of America's Capitol Hill club long before our own club was even dreamt of, once said, "the highest wisdom...is, a wise and masterly inactivity." Our club surely does not need big new plans merely to create an impression of action, heedless of the members' wishes or concerns--unlike some other clubs we can think of. Thank you. Now perhaps we can save any questions until after dinner."

Commentary feature gives a overall appraisal of the EU over the last year.