It would be wrong to say that the European Union has done too little, too slowly on the financial crisis, though many will. Several, as it happens, did not wait for the joint communiqué of the 27 countries before criticising the EU.

The “piecemeal approach has not alleviated market concerns”, said Jaime Caruana, director of the monetary and capital markets department at the International Monetary Fund. “We need a more comprehensive approach . . . in Europe”, he said, as the IMF launched a six-monthly report focused on the crisis.

This is a familiar refrain from those who would like the EU to act like a single, giant country. It was echoed yesterday by José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission President, who said that national solutions for European problems were inadequate, and could bring a “renationalisation of the European financial system which would amount to a step backwards in European integration”. Urging EU members to act in concert, he added: “I believe events have shown that no country is immune from this crisis. I hope that persuades the most sceptical people of the benefits of joint EU action.”

But it doesn’t. The EU’s slowness to act has merely revealed the boundaries where common interest reasonably gives way to national interest. German ministers have made the point bluntly: they don’t want German taxpayers’ money to bail out other countries’ banks. Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, has said the same, if expressing it as political fact, not prescription.

Yesterday’s emergency finance ministers’ meeting finally agreed to guarantee bank deposits of €50,000. Resistance to a €100,000 guarantee came from poorer countries who argued, entirely properly, that they could not afford it. Why should this not be seen as a good objection? The alternative is that in the search for an identical solution for each country, some will be bullied into making a promise they can’t keep.

But there has been a quest for a common solution, which has led to some odd language. Barroso has contributed a lament that countries are in danger of tilting the playing field if they offer aid to their banks that is not matched by others. The target of this talk is Ireland, which has annoyed others by going its own way, and guaranteeing not just retail deposits but some commercial ones too. Other governments – and those rushing to put their savings in Ireland – might do better to ask whether Ireland can afford to keep its promise, rather than berating it for a supposed moral offence against the spirit of European union.

This is not to say that a joint solution is undesirable. Of course it isn’t. It will help confidence, and underpin the main banks. But it is denying the reality of European countries’ differences, the sheer expense of any bailout, and the democratic need for each government to persuade its own public to pay; to pretend that the common denominator will be anything but low.

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