There is no denying that Belgium's Prime Minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, can be long-winded in both his country's national languages. So many journalists sympathised with the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, when he skipped a late-night joint press conference with Mr Verhofstadt in Ghent recently.
But when Mr Prodi explained his absence by complaining that the Prime Minister was hogging all the questions, he appeared petty-minded and more than a little weak. The Commission President had already trampled on the toes of France's Mr Jacques Chirac, Britain's Mr Tony Blair and Germany's Mr Gerhard Schr÷der with a sulky complaint about the three men's decision to meet privately before the Ghent summit.
For much of Europe's media, it has been open season on Mr Prodi ever since. The criticism became so loud this week that Mr Prodi's old political adversary, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, rushed to his support, claiming that the Commission President was being vilified because he is Italian.
Mr Prodi's official spokesman went further yesterday, accusing the media of telling "stupid lies" about his boss. When asked to identify some of the lies, he pointed to allegations that Mr Prodi cannot speak French or English and that he is surrounded by Italian advisers.
Mr Prodi does indeed speak French and English; in fact he spends most of each working day speaking one of them. But although his English is fluent, Mr Prodi expresses himself eccentrically. He mumbles, growls and fidgets and is easily provoked into unwise outbursts, making every public appearance a potential nightmare for his media handlers.
"Prodi is a problem," one Commissioner acknowledged. "But nobody can talk to him because he doesn't want to hear criticism." Although the Commission remains publicly loyal to Mr Prodi, some Commissioners roll their eyes when his name is mentioned and many senior officials snigger openly about him. Among EU leaders, Mr Chirac treats the Commission President with frank contempt and although some other leaders like Mr Prodi, few regard him as a significant political player.
Mr Prodi's admirers say that much of the criticism is unfair, focusing on the Commission President's personality rather than his policies. Some argue that the European media are bent on bringing down this Commission, just like that of Jacques Santer before it.
Mr David O'Sullivan, who served as Mr Prodi's chef de cabinet before becoming the EU's Secretary General, claims that a look at the Commission President's record tells a story of success.
"He has shown a remarkable capacity to pull together a team of 20 Commissioners and to distribute portfolios to them according to their strengths. The Commission has been shown to work very well and that is due in no small measure to Romano Prodi," Mr O'Sullivan maintains.
Others suggest that Mr Prodi may be a victim of his own success in ending bickering among Commissioners and their staffs and allowing individual Commissioners to shine at his own expense.
The fall of the Santer Commission in 1999 over allegations of corruption has eaten away at morale within the Commission and a cumbersome internal reform has added to the dreary mood in Brussels' European Quarter. But many Commission staff cite Mr Prodi's poor public image as a factor in the Commission's widespread unpopularity.
The problem certainly does not lie in the Brussels press corps, most of whom are slavish devotees of the Commission and its ambitions for Europe.
One difficulty is that, for all his apparent cuddliness and professorial air, Mr Prodi is an unusually stubborn, intellectually arrogant politician. Certain of the rightness of his course, he is determined to be vindicated by events.
This is one reason why, no matter how humiliating the headlines or how obvious the titters of his staff, Mr Prodi is unlikely to step down before his term in office ends in 2005. One senior adviser said he was 100 per cent sure that the Commission President would complete his term.
Mr Prodi is unlikely to return to active politics in Italy but some Italian observers suggest he may have his eye on the Italian presidency, which becomes vacant in 2005. If he does not go willingly, the only way to get rid of Mr Prodi is to sack the entire Commission. This requires a two thirds majority in the European Parliament and, so soon after the Santer debacle, would be regarded as an almost suicidal move for the European project.
The larger member-states have no interest in dislodging Mr Prodi because a weak Commission could make it easier for them to push through their agenda on Europe's future. For smaller member-states, however, Mr Prodi's tumbling public esteem is bad news because only a strong Commission can defend their interests.
By now, it matters little whether the public perception of Mr Prodi is fair or not. Many of his senior staff and colleagues admit that the Commission President has become a liability. But few believe that Mr Prodi loves the European Union enough to say goodbye to it.