The House...the house..the house of Pain?
no...the House of Cards: AKA Europe.

this article confirms some things i thought, but also sheds some light on the background behind so much of the ongoing petty feuds around europe. At least there aren't going to be wars between them anytime soon.

however:

What did Delors have to say on this occasion? He asked: "What do we [nations of Europe] want to do together? We keep skirting the issue."

Indeed they do. To those of us who for 20 years have suspected the entire project, the answer is plain: the French and Germans have a Faustian pact in which a bureaucratic -- that is, undemocratic -- mega-state rises on the foundations of a ruined Christendom. Germany runs the economy, setting interest rates, labour standards and taxation so as to impose on neighbouring countries the costs with which it is itself already burdened, while France runs foreign policy flexing its anti-Americanism and cutting a dash on the world stage.

This is pretty clear, at least about the french running the foreign policy. if they keep telling the eastern bloc states to shut up and take it.....or worse, if they eventually tell britain to shut up and take it...europe, as a mega state may fall apart. the european alternatives to working together are not historically encouraging.