Because being "pro-Europe" is a faith cult rather than a policy, its adherents dare not raise a peep of protest at its outrages. Not for the first time in Europe's history, a centralised superstate stalks the continent with a retinue of uncritical appeasers unable to see the wood for the tax-free salaries.

Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign-policy chief, issues almost daily scoldings to nasty regimes. But tyrants hardly tremble...The stalling of EU expansion has dented its soft power to its east. The show trial of Ukraine’s opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has drawn no serious sanction from the EU.

The peace-making loans from the UK are announced Monday by the British Council to coincide with the visit of David Cameron. They represent a remarkable thaw in cultural diplomactic relations. They will mean major Russian exhibitions in Britain, including one on Catherine the Great, coming next year from the Hermitage to the newly expanded National Museum of Scotland.

We cannot tolerate a new candidate for membership of the EU that is bringing in a frozen conflict ... You cannot have it both ways - candidate status moving nicely along and at the same time having a stranglehold on northern Kosovo. That sentiment is shared by a number of EU countries,

Low public support has been an issue from time to time. Here in this country we have two offices, and one includes an information center. So we are in public diplomacy. On that one I could also say that sometimes I could wish on more engagement on Ukrainian side.

Europe’s largest student union on Monday issued its support for the social protests taking place across Israel, two days after more than 400,000 Israelis took to the streets in the movement’s biggest series of demonstrations yet.

The work of Romanian cultural institutes will make the object of a distinct analysis. I believe in soft power, and Romania has a tremendous cultural vivacity which deserves to be properly publicised. I think that the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) under the leadership of Dr Patapievici is doing a great job in that sense, and we fully support its programmes.