A couple of days ago Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was forced to land in Austria. France, and Portugal and a few other countries had closed their airspace for his plane as he was on a return journey from Moscow. The reason given was that these countries suspected Mr Morales was giving a lift to Edward Snowden, public enemy number 1 in the USA and honorary citizen of Moscow airport transit. Snowden is the ex-CIA and NSA-official telling the rest of the world that not only big brother, but also Uncle Sam is watching you, and certainly listening in on you and reading your emails.

The forcing down of the presidential plane was somewhat short of a huge success as it turned out Snowden was not on the plane. It was a tremendous success, though, in that it managed to upset not only Morales but basically all South American leaders, some of whom called it a blatant case of neo-colonialism; and those were the nice ones. Morales, meanwhile, returned to a hero’s welcome in Bolivia.

This huge success by Europe to unite South American nations, be it only in t anger, may yet again be another sign of the growing importance and relevance of a common European foreign policy.

There are those minimalist cynics, of course, who claim no such thing exists. But the combined efforts of the French, Portuguese and Austrians, where Morales was forced to land, shows that if we get our act together and really put in an effort we can bring an unarmed Lear jet to land where we want. It is a major feat, which probably has the champagne corks popping at the EEAS, the EU’s external action service. Somewhat disappointingly, it turns out that the service as such had nothing to do with this supreme military success, as it turned out to be a trilateral action of three EU member states. On top of this, one of these – the forever brave French – has already apologised officially to the president for the action. That in itself does somehow underscore the effect of a European action, possibly codenamed ‘operation Bolivian snow’, just to give outsiders the idea that it had to do with a drug bust. A devious, and very cunning plan, surely.

Apart from the diplomatic cock-up, the operation has a few other negative results as well. As we know Snowden is wanted for spilling the beans on the US essentially spying on everyone, especially their supposed friends, the European allies. This episode has taught us that the Yanks may know a lot about us. On the other hand, though, our intelligence is not capable of telling who boards a relatively small Lear jet. We just assume things and then order planes to land so we can check it out.

Mind you, we only do so with planes of leaders who we know can do us no harm as we used to – or still do – colonise them. Would this be possible with Air Force One? It is difficult to imagine. Although, if ever there was cause for suspicion it is in the case of Air Force One. I do not know if you have ever noticed, but the US President, true sometimes accompanied by his wife and two children, travels in a 300plus seat plane. Not some silly little 20 seater that President Morales uses, but a plane with place enough to carry on board Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Blofeld, Moriarty and some 250 other international bad guys that one could think of. And this plane passes happily through the airspace of any European country it wishes unhindered. What would happen if Superman ever makes it to Europe? Would he be downed by the Luxembourg air-force because the Latvian secret services suspect that he may be carrying contraband under his cape?