Now look here! Just because some American Professors mucked up their excel (and had the idiocy to give their work to a student of all things!) and just because Europe is teetering on the brink of disintegration, and just because unemployment has soared while recession has broken records of longevity, and is close to breaking records on level, there is no excuse for blaming austerity!
Now poor old Manny Barroso, perhaps after a trip home? (Or does he even dare set foot there any more?) thought, well, um, perhaps this thing isn’t working out the way it should. Of course austerity is the only possible policy and the Germans are quite right to insist on it, but, um, well maybe it has just reached its limits?
As timid a statement at that got some heavy flak. From Berlin directly it is rumoured. How dare a minor appointee aparatchik hint at any doubt over austerity? President of the Commission? So? Who gives him the right to doubt the Schauble/Merkel dogma?
So what do we get?
“A row is brewing in Brussels after the European Commission denied that president Jos? Manuel Barroso pulled a u-turn yesterday when he said that Europe’s austerity programme had reached the limits of public acceptance.”
Good gracious me! No! Never! I never doubted the wisdom of the great Frau! No no. Cringe, cringe, quiver, quiver, shake, shake!
Just when is somebody going to shout out that though Schauble may be in a wheelchair, it doesn’t mean he is infallible!