What an exhausting, confusing, chaotic, exciting, unexpected, depressing, remarkable weekend. For the last several weeks, EU leaders have been struggling to get ahead of the story. Instead of leading, they have been reacting to events in the financial markets (and reacting slowly). Every time they thought they had put enough money on the table to reassure investors, the situation deteriorated further – until we reached the point last week where even the future of the Eurozone suddenly seemed in doubt.

Meanwhile, one of the largest EU member-states has been completely absent from the story. The UK is not a Eurozone country and so doesn’t vote on Eurozone matters (nor does it expect to be part of any bail-out) – but it has also been distracted by the recent general election result of a hung parliament (likely because most UK voters misunderstood the concept, and had actually wanted to “hang” parliament).

There are now furious (but probably very sleepy) negotiations going on behind the scenes in Britain, as both Labour and the Conservatives flirt with Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and try to entice him into coalition. There is no political culture of coalition-making in the UK, so one might expect our politicians to be clumsy and unused to it – but, on the other hand, because we so rarely have coalitions in the UK and there are expectations of strong government, negotiations are unlikely to drag on and on for months (as in Belgium, for example). Meanwhile, whilst the EU is undergoing possibly historic changes, the most eurosceptic country in the union is not paying a great deal of attention (at least, in public).

On 9 May 1950, French foreign-minister Robert Schuman made his famous declaration announcing the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community. 60 years (and one day) later, the European Union is proposing powerful new financial instruments for intervening in the eurozone and preventing the collapse of member-state economies. We should be cautious of assuming a progressive view of EU history (i.e. the idea that steps towards closer union are always “successes” for the EU and that it represents a “failure” when these steps are rejected), but I’m sure French President Sarkozy had the significance of the date in mind when he spoke on behalf of the “Council of the Eurozone” (a completely invented council with no basis in EU law) and announced on Friday that powerful new measures were planned.

Is this a historic occassion, as important as the Schuman Declaration? It’s too early to tell, but probably not. Charlemagne (who I hope is getting some sleep, after a weekend-from-Hell covering both the UK election and the EU financial crisis) does not believe this is a step towards full fiscal union. Rather, this is a compromise solution in an attempt to avoid full fiscal union, but still prevent the monetary union from collapsing. Nonetheless, an important step is being taken. Any new UK government is going to wake up to find itself committed to a powerful new financial support mechanism, despite the fact the UK is not in the Eurozone. This is (potentially) a politically explosive situation.

A remarkable weekend.