Kaja Kallas wanted to gather what she called "some of the brightest minds in security and defence" into an expert group that would write a report on how Europe should strengthen its own defence. The group never made it to a first session. Member states blocked it, and the European External Action Service cancelled the presentation at the last minute, on Sunday.

The official explanation is brief to the point of rudeness. "We decided not to proceed with that initiative," said an unnamed EU official, adding that some states felt the moment was not right.

It fell over a single name

According to sources, Italy led the resistance after learning who had been included. Roberta Pinotti, a former defence minister in left-wing governments and a political rival of the current minister Guido Crosetto, was among those selected. France and several other countries objected that the decision had not been discussed at ministerial level at all and had caught nearly every European government off guard.

Diplomats did not hold back in their descriptions: bad management, an unfortunate set of circumstances, a serious blunder. The Service replied that an advisory group was not seeking state representatives, so former officials were a logical choice. Formally - correct. Politically - somebody still forgot to inform the people who pay.

Neither the report nor Pinotti is the problem

The argument for haste is real: with the Munich Security Conference in February and American military reviews expected by the end of the year, Europe does not have unlimited time to think about its own defence. The problem is that the initiative was run as though there were not 27 governments that need to agree.

This is not Kallas's first stumble. Last year her 40-billion-euro military aid package for Ukraine collapsed. In May she claimed the US had evacuated its embassy in Kyiv over warnings of an imminent Russian attack - Washington later denied it. That same month China compared her to a disease. In June the Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar cut off contact with her after reports that she had privately compared Israel to apartheid South Africa.

The most revealing line came from one diplomat: member states want the Service to be a service for them, not an institution running a policy of its own. And it is precisely the small states, the ones now defending its position against full absorption into the Commission, who are among the dissatisfied.

For a country waiting at the EU's door, this is an instructive scene. A Union that demands a single foreign-policy voice from its candidates cannot itself assemble a working group of twenty-odd people without one member state killing it over a name on the list. The question is not whether Europe needs stronger defence. The question is who actually has the mandate to say so on its behalf.