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Angela Merkel smiled and nodded. Nicolas Sarkozy, his interpreter's headphones still on, gave an imperial thumbs-up. Silvio Berlusconi simply said: "Je suis d'accord".
When Gordon Brown presented the name of Cathy Ashton to Europe's big hitters on the seventh floor of the EU's Justus Lipsius building last night, he knew he'd sealed the deal.
With the Right-of-centre leaders keen to install their own man, Herman Van Rompuy, for the top post of President, the deadlock was finally broken as Mr Brown relayed the news that Baroness Ashton had emerged as the clear choice of the socialists for the foreign affairs job. All present knew they could enjoy their dinner of seabass and wild mushrooms safe in the knowledge that the big two posts had been filled.
It was just half an hour earlier that Mr Brown had engineered the breakthrough at a crunch meeting of the European socialists group. Announcing dramatically that he had given up on Tony Blair, he switched tack and declared he wanted a Labour Brit to take the foreign post. Side-meetings convened to find out exactly who should get the job, with one delegate asking "Why not Peter Mandelson?" Another name mooted was Geoff Hoon. But it was Cathy Ashton who emerged as the popular choice.
David Miliband had famously called for the new President to be someone who would "stop the traffic" in Washington and Moscow. The joke now was that Van Rompuy and Ashton are so low-profile they would struggle to stop the traffic in the streets where they lived.
Far from being an embarrassment for Europe, Mr Brown suggested that the appointments simply reflect the new shape of the EU. Nation states have the upper hand, Eastern Europe won't tolerate the old boys' network and the last twitch of federalism has faded, aides say.
When asked Henry Kissinger's infamous question about who would now take America's and China's phone call on behalf of Europe, Mr Brown said the question was out of date.
It was the G20, rather than the EU, that made big decisions on finance and climate change. "You've got to recognise that the world is changing faster than your old idea that there are three people who phone each other every day," he said.
Reader views (2)
During WW1 the Germans said the British Army were lions led by donkeys. Now we are simply sheep led by donkeys. Sleep walking into a totalitarian regime where everyone who will make decisions about our lives, and I don't mean nobodies like Ashton and the Belgian President, but Sarkozy, Merkl and Berlusconi is unelected by the British voter. These are the true leaders of the EU project.
None of three have any idea what British people want, but now they lead them through the nonentities they have notionally put in charge.
Well done Tony and Gordon. You got your revenge and jobs and pensions for life. Shame on the voters for not making a stand in protecting democracy.
- Stephen Rothbart, Prague, Czech Republic
Cathy Ashton has never been elected to any public office - ever. She now speaks for us on foreign affairs (just ask Hilary Clinton if you don't believe me - the UK no longer exists as an entity for the US Secretary of State she has her "counterpart"). You have no way of getting rid of her - nor does anyone else in Europe other than a coterie of the political class scattered around the chancelleries of Europe. So you better hope she has similar opinions on world affairs to your own - cos there's no alternative. Oh, by the way - she was a leading light in CND throughout the 1980s. Yes, the very CND that made Labour unelectable for the 1983 and 1987 elections. Hope that's Ok with you? It's not - oh, well tough.
- Milton-Not-Keynes, London
