EU great and good get gongs to mark 'greatest political achievement in human history'
Sitting in a circle on modern black office chairs in the centre of the European Parliament’s hemicycle in Strasbourg, Europe’s two queens assembled the new knights of the European Order of Merit for the first time.
The EU stood still while an army of MEPs, commissioners, diplomats, ministers, and veterans of interminable policy battles played out a pseudo-medieval fever dream – that never quite reached the level of grandeur it aimed for.
Dreamt up by Roberta Metsola, the Parliament president, who was perhaps inspired by the Knights Hospitaller who once ruled her own island, Malta, the new annual ceremony will recognise, she said, “those who, when it was difficult and when the outcome was uncertain, chose to lead”.
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