Wolfgang Munchau in the Financial Times:

The hostile takeover bid by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest steelmaker, for its rival Arcelor has given us an object lesson in the failure of European economic policy. Its paradigm has been that we can preserve our consensus-based economic model as long as we reform our welfare systems. I would argue that we should do the exact opposite: we should throw our business model on to the scrap heap and try to preserve our diverse welfare systems instead.

The xenophobia being shown by French and Luxembourgeois political leaders in defence of Arcelor is embarrassing.