Europe’s surly teenager – the UK – may have left the club only to be replaced by the new enfants terribles of the EU – Poland and Hungary. But like it or not, the two Visegrad states were protecting their national interests. Vetoing, or threatening to veto, a carefully crafted deal is a sure-fire way to infuriate every negotiator in the room. But the beauty of it is that out of every classic European standoff emerges a classic European compromise, within months or weeks. Hungary and Poland knew they could not scrap the rule of law mechanism in its entirety and played their cards well. In the end, they lost the battle but won the war.