The week in Strasbourg: The redundant security-screening equipment outside the press-conference chamber said it all.
The biggest news in Strasbourg this week was not what happened but what didn't. Harold Macmillan used to warn about "events, dear boy" and Israel's raid on the jail in faraway Jericho forced the cancellation of an address by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to the European Parliament.
The press room where the journalists write their stories was almost deserted on Tuesday night when the announcement came over the tannoy, in French and English, that the embattled Palestinian leader was returning home. It is understood efforts were made to have him stay, but to no avail.
Had he remained long enough to address the assembled MEPs he would have had an incomparable platform from which to denounce Israel and her allies over the Jericho raid. He could also have had a second "bully pulpit" in the form of a press conference afterwards. The non-appearance of Mr Abbas under such bizarre circumstances contributed to the general gloom in European circles about the Middle East. Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Elmar Brok of Germany, a rumpled-looking former journalist, was close to despair, fearing that "a last opportunity for peace has been lost".
The issues were clearly put by his fellow-countryman Hans-Gert Poettering from the right-of-centre European People's Party group, in a press briefing.
The EU could not assist Hamas because it did not recognise Israel's right to exist but, if the EU ceased its patronage of the Palestinians, the Iranians would step into the breach.
Meanwhile, Mr Brok was equally gloomy in discussing his own report on EU enlargement. Reflecting the uncertainty in the wake of French and Dutch rejection of the constitutional treaty, he sought to press the "pause" button on future expansion. "We have reached a point where we need to take stock of the situation," he said. Something between full accession and the loosely-structured European Neighbourhood Policy was required. He suggested membership of the European Economic Area, which already includes Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, as a halfway house for aspiring member-states.
But whatever their difficulties over issues like peace in the Middle East and the future of the EU, MEPs still found the energy and will to focus on narrower questions such as forced prostitution.
The World Cup in Germany this summer and reports of brothels and other sexual facilities being prepared on a Sodom and Gomorrah scale for drooling hordes of football fans brought horrified reaction from MEPs. They were particularly incensed by the remark attributed to a German lawyer acting for one of the World Cup brothels, that "sex and football go hand-in-hand".