EU split over racism conference
The European Union can't agree a policy towards the controversial UN conference on racism - which some countries are attending and others boycotting - and a former insider, Italy's foreign minister, is scathing about the failure.
Franco Frattini, who was until last year the European commissioner for security and justice, told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that the failure to agree a common approach was "a very serious mistake, because it shows our inability, despite all the words uttered in this connection, to come up with at least a lowest common denominator on a basic problem: namely the struggle against discrimination, on behalf of which we in Brussels so often speak out".
"And the amazing thing," he goes on, "is that, at the council, all 27 of us had managed to thrash out a common position on a document put together by the Dutch. We said: Either the preparatory documents are changed, or the EU will submit its own text."
"It proves once again that, when push comes to shove, Europe is incapable of speaking with a single voice despite its stated intentions. And this allows member countries to decide individually on the basis of what each one considers to be its own founding principles."
And he's scathing about countires like Britain, which are attending the conference.
"I should imagine that a compromise was preferred at any price. And this, despite the fact that in the documents prepared for the rendezvous in Geneva, apart from a few minor improvements, a basic approach has been maintained equating Israel with a racist country rather than a democracy. There are still unacceptable phrases which, if there had been a smidgen of consistency with what was said at the EU ministers' meeting, should have convinced people to forgo attending the conference - as we have decided to do, and as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands have decided to do."
Who's right: Italy, the Netherlands and Germany; or Britain and France? And does it matter that there isn't a single EU approach ?
I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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