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Article: The mandarin's moment. (European Community summit) (Editorial)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- December 19, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Thanks to civil servants at Edinburgh, the European Community can now turn to imperatives on its doorstep
BRITISH civil servants excel at improvising against the odds and against the clock. The tradition embraces Dunkirk in 1940 and the European's Community's summit in Edinburgh last weekend. Out of six ghastly months as a lamed president of the EC, they managed to conjure a victory. The prime minister, John Major, again showed his skill at chairing summits, not least because he can master a brief. But it was the mandarins who gave him the clever brief to master.
Their victory was a relative one--relative to what was deemed possible. The summit paid only ...