AN EAST-WEST divide yawns at the heart of Europe. The odd thing is, this time it does not involve European Union politicians, but the journalists who cover the EU. The divide is pretty serious: the British and American press stands accused of trying to talk down all of east and central Europe, and talk up stories of splits and disunity among the 27 members. Dark motives are being attributed to newspapers that reported an emergency summit on March 1st as a failure.

One diplomat, a reliable and well-informed man from an important country, wondered to me today—hypothetically but not very—whether the Anglo-Saxon press was trying to doom the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty this autumn. The eastern block contains some countries in desperate trouble, like Hungary or Latvia, he noted, but also many others, like Poland, Slovakia or the Czech Republic, which are in much better shape. Yet they are all being treated as a disaster area. It was as if someone wanted to imply that the newcomers were somehow to blame for the desperate economic times now hitting western European neighbours, notably Ireland. If enough Irish voters were convinced that they were being dragged down by irresponsible eastern newcomers, might they not turn against enlargement, the EU and thus Lisbon?

I think such theories are bonkers, and I am not suggesting that he believes them. But the stakes are high for that diplomat's country: its currency has taken a pounding in recent weeks, and his government thinks the Western press is very largely to blame, for inaccurately reporting that the whole region is in trouble.

An excellent new English language blog from the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, notes striking differences in the way that the March 1st summit was reported by the British, American, Polish and French press.

Under the headline, "Who is out to get the eurozone (or maybe Central Europe)?", Gazeta's EU correspondent, Dominika Pszczólkowska, notes that the British and American press mostly reported that the summit was a calamity, marked by deep divisions within the EU. Whereas the French newspaper Le Figaro, which she quotes, said:

the summit allowed the 27, destabilized by the economic crisis, to close ranks. A month before the G20 summit in London this was essential

As for Dominika (who is a friend as well as a respected colleague, in the interests of full disclosure), she notes that she reported:

that "the crisis did not divide the EU" and that the Polish prime minister came back reassured that the EU says "no to eurobonds, no to protectionism and treating Central Europe as a worse partner"

Yet the Times watched a disaster unfold:

it should have been the moment when the whole of Europe pulled in the same direction to rebuild the world’s financial system. Instead, a gathering of EU leaders yesterday before next month’s G20 summit was marked by suspicion and self-interest, with the economic crisis exposing deep faultlines on how best to respond to the downturn

So what is up? Dominika reports:

This has led some in Brussels to ask if there is not a conspiracy here. Perhaps some in London or Washington are trying to destabilize the eurozone? Hitting it where it is weakest, that is in those countries who are just aspiring to join, but are closely linked for example through the banking sector? Some in the European Commission seem to believe this.

Dominika comes up with a credible, non-conspiratorial explanation. British journalists are temperamentally dismissive of summit conclusions, she notes, so more or less ignored the fact that the March 1st shindig ended with an agreed text stressing unity and pledging to shun protectionism. She writes:

The British and American press is often more critical of the EU, particularly summits. They don't seem to buy the line that the French, Germans or Poles often do that when EU leaders gather words are deeds. But this time the differences are particularly big.

I think this is right, but may be only part of the explanation. For many reporters at the summit, the story unexpectedly changed tack early on in the day. They had been expecting another round of sparring between France and the Czech Republic over protectionism and bail-outs for the French car industry. Then the Hungarian prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, asked EU leaders to agree on a special €180 billion bail-out plan for the ex-communist bloc, and circulated a discussion paper that could be read as saying that if such money were not forthcoming, millions of unemployed easterners might flee west. Mr Gyurcsany's plan went down badly with Western leaders like Angela Merkel of Germany, but also caused great anger among leaders from countries like Poland and the Czech Republic. Hungary is a terrible spokesman for east and central Europe: its leaders spent like drunken sailors during long years of economic growth, and the public finances are now in dire shape as the crisis hits. Also, asking for a single bailout plan for the whole block only reinforces the idea of the east as a single problem.

I suspect that journalists from eastern and central Europe picked up very quickly that their own governments and diplomats were hostile to the Hungarian plan, and that it was going nowhere. So naturally enough, they discounted what seemed to them to be a distraction. But western reporters saw the prime minister of a big country proposing a dramatic plan, backed with a neat angle for readers back home (starving Hungarians are coming), only to be slapped down at the summit end by Mrs Merkel, who said that eastern European nations did not need saving as a block, as they faced "very different" situations.

I also think that the British press, especially, simply likes a fight and a row. In defence of my Anglo-Saxon brethren, Mark Mardell, the BBC's Europe editor, picked up the same issue about the summit's reporting as Dominika and her colleagues from the east.

In his indispensable blog (till we get the blogroll fixed up, you are going to have to put up with more of these sudden herograms), he notes:

I am puzzled by much of the reporting of the summit. Many focused on the accurate fact that the EU did not come up with a rescue plan for Eastern Europe and its banks. It's fair enough, and obviously true. But a casual reader could be forgiven for thinking that this was the rejection of a long-awaited plan, a further confirmation that the EU dithers in the face of a crisis, and exceptionally bad news for the East. For me, the main story was the row over protectionism

I have a hunch that, once again in the story of enlargement, ignorance and laziness on the part of western reporters is a big part of the problem. It is just easier to treat east and central Europe as a monolith. A last word to Dominika. She sees a silver lining to all the talk of catastrophe. Journalists all around Europe are paying so much attention to the region that they have finally "started differentiating between countries, which really are in very different situations."