The EU’s Van Rompuy descends further into self-parody. Ireland’s Journal reports:
YOU MIGHT THINK Enda Kenny has every right to feel a little down these days. But EU leader Herman van Rompuy begs to disagree – he’s sent the Taoiseach The World Book of Happiness for Christmas. The self-help book, which gathers the work of 100 “researchers of happiness” from around the world, extols the benefits of positive thinking for self-confidence and decision-making.
Van Rompuy, the chairman of the European Council, sent a copy of the book to every world leader including Enda – along with a letter urging them to “make people’s happiness and well-being our political priority for 2012.”
The work may make interesting Christmas reading for the Taoiseach, arriving as it does in the wake of fresh Budget cuts, crumbling Fine Gael support, and with a new EU deal threatening years more austerity for Ireland.
But he shouldn’t let all that get to him. “Positively inclined people see everything in its right proportions,” van Rompuy writes in his accompanying letter.