Now the Belgians catch Dutch flu

"Poland is ready" are the opening words on the Polish government's web site heralding imminent membership of the European Union. But ready for what? Ready for a European Union which is increasingly demonstrating last-minute nerves over the grand project of enlargement? Ready for the tortuous process of months of EU negotiations in a Union within which one member state or another is always in a state of domestic political flux, hobbled by the lack of a mandate?

No authority
Welcome to a world in which the best-laid plans usually go marvellously awry. And although the growing dispute over EU enlargement did not exactly bring down the Dutch government last week, the row played its part in splitting the far right and fracturing an exceedingly fragile coalition.
Unfortunately, such political arrangements are a common feature of EU countries. Now we face the last crucial months of enlargement negotiations with a caretaker Dutch government which has no legal or political authority to endorse the enlargement agreement on time to meet the deadline at the EU summit scheduled for Copenhagen in December.

Don't panic
But don't panic - at least not too much, because this is par for the course in Brussels, where it is part of the negotiating ritual for at least one national government minister, if not more, to turn up for meetings with a doctor's note excusing him or her from making any decisions. This could be because of an imminent general election or due to a little local political difficulty during which an EU agreement on tariffs and quotas for imported tinned peaches is, temporarily, out of the question.
Take the Germans: no serious high-level negotiations on the enlargement financial package or the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy could even be contemplated on until Herr Schroeder had been safely returned - or removed - from power. And then, just as everyone began to bite their nails over the Irish referendum vote, the Dutch cabinet turned out to be built of straw and was blown away, not least because of rumblings in the right wing and green ranks about the fitness of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia to become EU members.

Where next?
So where exactly do we go from here? Another feature of EU politics is that when a crisis like enlargement, packed with populist promise, turns up, it spreads like flu. This is precisely what has happened. The Belgian Government has now contracted the virus. The Belgian Flemish socialist party, which is a major coalition power in Europe's most notoriously divided country split between French and Dutch communities, is now suggesting delaying enlargement until more reforms are completed in other areas such as farming and the budget.
It makes a lot of sense, if they hadn't turned up with the idea along with the Dutch and the Irish at the last minute.
Meanwhile, on another tack to exploit the enlargement process from the opposite direction, the British, Germans, French and Swedes are using the new members endgame to push hard for fixed limits on all EU farm spending before giving the final go-ahead in December.
All this will be agonised over in Brussels later this week when the 15 EU leaders - or rather 14 EU leaders and one caretaker government - meet to assess the enlargement progress. They need a final position on all the outstanding issues by early November if a final agreement in December is to become a reality.
"Ultimately they realise that there is too much momentum for enlargement to be blocked at this point," one senior diplomat told me as we waited for the Irish referendum result.
But then, a 40-ton lorry heading downhill with no brakes also has altogether too much momentum.
"Poland is Ready" is a bold claim - but the rather more pressing question this week is whether the European Union is ready. The events of the past ten days strongly suggest it is not.