NO ONE will stand up for Europe these days, sigh its dwindling band of supporters. National leaders stay mute about the bits of the European Union they like and rage against those they don’t. Eurosceptics are given free rein to vent their populist outrage. The advantages of European integration—freedom to work and travel, trade and cross-border investment, grants for poor areas—are banked and forgotten. The challenges are magnified and manipulated.

That leaves only the leaders of the EU institutions to mount a defence of their troubled project. And so this week Charlemagne clambered aboard the gravy train to Strasbourg to watch Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission (the EU’s executive arm) deliver his “state-of-the-union” address to the European Parliament. The annual speech, a wheeze cooked up a few years ago, features the closest thing the EU has to a president, grandstanding before the closest thing it has to a legislature.Well-meaning it may be, but this ersatz accountability is ill-suited to times of crisis. In their addresses to Congress, American presidents typically proclaim the strength of their union in rousing perorations met with hearty rounds of applause. That was not an option available to Mr Juncker. Brussels is on the back foot; Eurosceptics, many of them inside the chamber he addressed, seek not just its defeat but its destruction. Wary of inflaming Europe’s divisions further, EU officials briefed journalists that the watchwords this year would be humility and unity, bolstering a relentless focus on matters of concern to “ordinary people”.

Gone, therefore, were the divisive themes of last year’s speech, such as the management of refugees. Brexit, a subject on which Mr Juncker’s opinions have not always proved welcome, hardly warranted a mention. In their place came a clutch of moderately sized proposals, including funds for investment and for defence research, and the offer of free Wi-Fi for all population centres by 2020. A €44 billion ($50 billion) development fund for Africa was promised, a ploy to keep economic migrants away from European shores (though research suggests it could have the opposite effect). During a speech that at times tilted more towards Europeans’ fears than their aspirations, Mr Juncker vowed endless forms of “protection”: from terrorism, globalisation, corporations and competition. Euro-enthusiasts cheered the ambition. Sceptics claimed the lesson of Brexit had been ignored.

Mr Juncker’s first problem lay in his surroundings. The charge against the European Parliament’s second seat—the absurdity of dislodging MEPs and their entourages from Brussels to Strasbourg once a month, at an annual cost of €114m—is not dulled by familiarity. Meanwhile, the gossip in the bars and restaurants of Strasbourg was fixed on the obscure matter of whether Martin Schulz, the president of the parliament, should retain his post once his term expires in January, which would violate a parliamentary agreement over the distribution of top EU jobs among parties. Institutional arcana are frustrating for leaders seeking to defend the EU’s relevance, but this is how it works.

Yet Mr Juncker’s difficulties ran deeper than buildings and institutions. The authority of the commission has dwindled in recent years as governments have reasserted control over their treasuries and territories. What kind of inspiration can the commission’s chief offer? Promise too much and face accusations of imperial overreach (and irritate governments). Say too little and be attacked for complacency. In America a strong presidential speech can concentrate minds in a crisis. In the EU, with its diffusion of power and uncertain lines of authority, the spotlight only exposes the highest officials’ impotence. Mr Juncker’s wizened features and sometimes halting delivery embodied the drain of power from the institution he represents.

Smart observers thus recommended ignoring Strasbourg and turning to Bratislava, where the leaders of EU governments (bar Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister) will meet on September 16th to thrash out their post-Brexit future. It was once hoped that the 27 might stride boldly forth into uncharted territory of integration. These hopes have faded as their differences reassert themselves. The leaders may find common ground on matters like a single headquarters for EU military missions, a Franco-German proposal endorsed in Mr Juncker’s speech. They will assert the importance of control over the EU’s external borders. But on meatier matters like harmonising asylum rules or euro-zone integration, agreement looks more elusive than ever.

Hope over experience

No matter, say optimists: this is the beginning of a “period of reflection” that will culminate in a set of shiny new initiatives next March, when the EU will mark the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, its founding document. Charlemagne hopes his scepticism will be forgiven. The EU is in a bind. Its institutional leaders are too weak to battle its crises; its heads of government see little advantage in defending its achievements and are plagued by disagreements. Austrian, Dutch and French elections in the months ahead will further test the mood. It is telling that these days the EU’s most robust defenders are found outside its borders, as a visit to Ukraine or Georgia will reveal. (Many in Brussels still swoon at the memory of a stirring defence of European integration delivered by Barack Obama at a German trade fair in April.)

In time, that could change. The benefits of the EU will start to feel all too real to refugee-phobic states in the east if their subsidies are threatened in the coming round of budget talks. Euro members may be roused from their slumbers when crisis next hits. But if the failed attempt to keep Britain inside the EU provides any lessons for others, it is that years of unchecked attrition warfare on Brussels may have nasty consequences. European leaders facing domestic insurgencies might do well to listen. No doubt Mr Juncker would approve.