Now the challenge is to avoid the welter of grandiloquence and rule-bending that undermined so many previous schemes.

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His "I am an African" speech from 1996 is rightly celebrated, but Mr Mbeki famously lacked the common touch - he would probably call it the "proletariat engagement" - and was more often mocked for his grandiloquence than praised for his eloquence.

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So the way is now clear for European heads of governments to sound the bugle for stronger defence when they meet in Helsinki next month and for humbler diplomats and defence-planners to begin a year's hard slog working out what, if anything, all this grandiloquence really means.

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