Europe's leaders lashed out at each other in Davos in an inflamed dispute over how to stop the EU collapsing, laying bare the festering divisions that will plague the European project long after British withdrawal.

"The whole idea of an ever-closer Europe has gone, it's buried," said Dutch premier Mark Rutte, dismissing calls for full political union as a dangerous romantic fantasy.

"The fastest way to dismantle the EU is to continue talking about a step-by-step move towards some sort of superstate," he said at the World Economic Forum.

His comments went to the heart of a fierce battle under way for control over the EU project, and provoked an impassioned counter-attack from Martin Schulz, the European Parliament's president.

Mr Schulz called it profoundly misguided to give up the dream of political union and retreat to the nation state. "If it's Angela Merkel, or Mark Rutte, or whoever else, they must have the courage to say that we need ever-closer union more than ever in the 21st century, and without it the EU has no future," he said.

Mr Schulz accused Europe's ministers of subverting the EU in a "double game", agreeing to measures behind closed doors in the EU's council of ministers and then denying any responsibility once they return home. "This is destroying the European spirit."

He accused prime ministers of arriving for meetings at the Justus Lipsius Building in Brussels and proclaiming before they even enter the door that they are there only to protect their own narrow interest.

"We have some members sitting inside the European Parliament trying to destroy the EU from within. They are drawing EU salaries, and one of them is running for the presidency of France," he said.

Frans Timmermans, the European Commission's vice-president, said there was a "fundamental ideological confrontation going on in our EU". He called on Europe's leaders to stop hiding behind subterfuge and pick their side, rather than blaming Brussels for everything. "You need to show your cards, show where you stand," he said.

David Fuller's view

The masks of EU solidarity have clearly fallen away at Davos.  This will have shocked delegations from a number of other countries, particularly American readers of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and also anyone influenced by President Obama’s view of the EU and Angela Merkel.

2017 will be an uncertain year for the EU, with a number of important elections, often including so-called populist candidates. 

I hope the EU can morph successfully back into a free trade association of independent countries, including the return of national currencies.  The Euro could be retained as a business currency, if they wished.  That would be best for Europeans and also for the global economy. 

However, the breakup of the EU and the return to individual currencies, while desirable and very good for Europeans over the longer term, is likely to be a chaotic process over the lengthy medium term.  You get an inkling of this from the bitterness expressed at Davos, when EU delegates were more candid but still on their best behaviour.  Reports suggest that anger and disillusion at street level is much worse. 

There were a number of interesting emails if you have access to The Telegraph’s site.  Here is the best in my opinion:

Hurricane Jack 19 Jan 2017 4:41PM

As the idea of its time is left behind in a quickly changing world, the EU elites watch with horror and disbelief, confounded by the collapse of their idealist Utopia and the ugly truth of reality. When fingers are pointed and blame cast, trust dissipates like a mist blown in the wind and then each to their own interests and the recriminations start.

Michael Deacon, in a separate article, on which he invites no comments, believes the EU has no option but to punish Britain in response to Brexit but the cat is out of the bag. Self harming punishment or not, in the wake of the Brexit vote, the continual growth of the UK economy and Theresa May's clearly expressed vision, the world can see Britain's potential unshackled from the backward bureaucracies and Machiavellian political intrigues of the EU. How many other countries are looking at Britain with envious eyes and harbour a desire to trade freely with the UK, EU or no EU. The edifice won't crumble if the EU doesn't punish Britain as Deacon Pontificates, it is crumbling already. Martin Shultz can see it; he even describes the rot that is eating within but there is clunking irony in his pronouncement that it is profoundly misguided to give up on the dream when it is in fact profoundly misguided to believe and die for a lost cause. He envisions an enemy within, terrible people drawing a salary while acting to destroy the EU but fails to see that his enemy are component parts of his machine. There are no enemies at play; the wheels are simply flying off the cart, the component parts increasingly wanting to go their own way.

The EU's arrogance peaked during David Cameron's infamously failed renegotiation and the subsequent eloquent orations about how difficult it will be for Britain to leave and negotiate with a powerhouse such as theirs. Their collective ego, their puffed up arrogance was well and truly popped when the British people cast their vote.

The countries of Europe, instead of listening to the hot air emanating from a failed elite, should now create a new council to discuss how the countries of the former EU continue to trade and preserve peace in a post EU world.

Here is a PDF of AEP’s report.