To prevent diplomatic shakedowns, Europe must curb abusive national vetoes

At 344 pages in its English version, the Consolidated Version of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union displays, as one might expect, a degree of exhaustiveness. The bloc’s constitution-in-all-but-name includes three pages of rules regulating the exports of a refinery in the Dutch Antilles. There is a mention of who gets to own summer houses in Denmark (only Danes). Somewhere in there are also bits on how eu laws are made, outlining the various powers of European institutions in Brussels as they marshal 27 member states towards ever-closer union.