After 15 amazing years, Europe enters surreal phase

FT.com / Columnists / Gideon Rachman

"After 15 amazing years, Europe enters surreal phase

By Gideon Rachman

Published: January:45 | Last updated: January:45

René Magritte, the surrealist painter, lived and worked in Brussels for most of his life. So it seems only appropriate that the European Union – an increasingly surreal organisation – should have chosen to base itself in Magritte’s home town.

The hint of surrealism in the EU’s affairs struck me at the organisation’s most recent summit, after I overheard a conversation in the corridor. A flustered diplomat was insisting angrily to a journalist: “This is not a non-paper.” It was a pleasing phrase, faintly reminiscent of Magritte’s masterwork “This Is Not A Pipe”."