Recent headlines in some of the UK’s printed media takes the biscuit for arrogant, one-eyed and self-absorbed coverage of EU affairs writes In Vino Rimoribis.

What has irked the UK’S Eurosceptic editors is a simple and understandable statement by the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, that he does not wish his presidency to be bogged down in internal navel-gazing through Treaty renegotiations.

Yet, The Times (owned by a USA citizen), the Daily Mail (owned by a resident of France), the Daily Telegraph (owned by two brothers who are not UK Residents) spit venom at the possibility that the UK Prime Minister cannot deliver on his pledge to renegotiate the UK’S Treaty obligations with the EU.

It really is a case of the UK tail trying to wag the EU dog. Why on earth should 27 other EU Member States plunge their domestic polities into the threat of constitutional chaos just because a weak UK leader has irresponsibly allowed himself to be boxed in by his party’s europhobic wing?

It’s as if the editorial line of the UK papers listed is completely unaware that French Presidential elections and German federal elections are due to take place in 2017. The last thing Merkel and Hollande would want is to reopen the Pandora’s box of EU treaty negotiations during the lead-up to a national election campaign.

The UK europhobic position can be reduced to a spoilt brat having a violent tantrum until they get their own way. The problem is that 27 other interested parties are expected to bend the knee to the UK  incoherent position.

Juncker’s position is perfectly understandable, there may be room for some reform but trying to do that through treaty change within two years is naive in the extreme. But it goes a long way to demonstrate the puerile  nature of the debate about the EU amongst the paranoia of the right-wing press in the UK.