Germany is increasingly fighting a war on several fronts with its EU partners. Having bluntly announced (quite rightly, as it happens) that there will need to be Lisbon renegotiation to bring in tougher fiscal rules, Angela Merkel is coming under fire on all sides.

On Monday last, Commission President José Manuel Barroso dismissed German calls for changes to the EU treaties enabling tougher sanctions to enforce budgetary discipline in the eurozone. He asserted: “It would be naïve to think one can reform the treaty only in areas Germany considers important. Then of course the British and others will come with their wishes. We will not propose treaty modifications even though we are open to good ideas.”

So we are open to good ideas in a sort of closed-off options way, then. Senor Barroso’s country is heading for the wheelbarrows full of banknotes option, so he isn’t really in much of a position to carp. Other signs that Barroso has lost touch with earthly matters included his response to questions about the inflating central EU budget: “I would be surprised if it would come to a reduction of the EU budget”. Prepare to be surprised, Mano.

Then there’s dear truculent old Blighty. Although Merkel told aides she found David Cameron “pleasant…we will do business” on meeting him the other day, the Queen’s speech yesterday made clear that the Government would propose a bill to ensure that ‘this Parliament and the British people have their say on any proposed transfer of powers to the European Union’ by requiring referendums on future treaties. The commitment reminds me of Chamberlain’s 1939 promise to Poland, having been hoodwinked by Hitler over Czechoslovakia the year before: ‘No more mealy-mouth kiddo, one more strike and you’re out’. (To be fair, the warning was aimed more at Brussels than Germany).

On the Home Front, Merkel was stabbed in the front by former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who argued that the Chancellor had made Germany “more isolated in Europe than ever”, but then took a swipe at the French with, “we the Germans must always provide the lion’s share of the financing, while the French President gets the praise”. Well Josch, you sure as hell aren’t paying most of the new financial tax: that’ll be down to a big share from the British Lion.

In this dysfunctional underclass-family squabble, the Wall Street Journal is merely a nosey neighbour in the next street, but I include this extract from the Journal’s Monday piece, because it’s very funny. ‘German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’ thundered the oped, ‘should try not speaking for a day, and see if the euro rises.’

More seriously, the Journal correctly nailed panicky politicos and smug Brussels fatties as a big part of the underlying problem – see Barroso bollocks earlier above. And France’s Le Figaro (much maligned for being Rightist, but I like it) gave this rousing bit of a bas les fonctionnaires on Monday: ‘the turmoil has not prevented our beloved Eurocrats from carrying out a velvet coup d’état during the last days. They have decided on the sly that we need ‘better governance’ of the euro…Have we realised that we are going to leave the keys of our budgetary policy to some Brussels-based Eurocrats who are not accountable to anyone, and who could just keep on making mistakes, as they have been doing with the regularity of a metronome during the last decade?”

Sock it to ‘em, LeFig. But as often happens, from fervour comes unconscious insight – for in seeming to be allied with Brussels, Geli Merkel is getting it wrong. Being German, she is trying to be correct, observing that as in theory the power lies there, she should be with them if she is to take the rest of Europe with her. I think if she does so, the very best she can hope for is to drag the European laggards along with Germany.

The power lines in the EU need to change from incompetent, arrogant unelected pen-pushers to switched-on, skilled – and above all elected – managers. Very few people hate the European ideal: most people are merely appalled by the anal, pc-riddled, wasteful stupidity and corrupt gravy-train that is its bureaucratic class. Ironically, the way to unite Europe is to thrust a large silver-tipped stake into the EU’s heart.

I’m old-fashioned, and probably easily dismissed as an Anglo-Saxon supremacist. But I tell you what: if the British, Dutch and Germans united to kick the blobs out of Brussels and tell the Gallico-Latins to shape up, then we really would have an EU that might genuinely aspire to take on the world.

Such an outcome is highly unlikely. But right now, Angela Merkel needs allies – and we can be one of those. We don’t deserve to be, because our fiscal management over the last decade has been what one could only describe as sub-Greek. But she is in a storm, and we are a port. Although I love the French dearly, when it comes to applying fiscal consistency and iron discipline, there are the Germans, the Dutch and our own SAS – beyond which, everything else on this continent is a bit of a joke.