13/07/2015
Says Jean-Claude Juncker
at the press conference marking the end of the marathon talks on the Greek bailout plan:
The agreement was laborious. It took its time but it has been concluded. From the beginning of the so-called Greek case the Commission has repeated again and again that we would not accept any form of Grexit. There is no Grexit and on form and substance we are satisfied with the result that we have reached.
So, as we come to an entirely predictable (and - by me - predicted) outcome, I don't see why I shouldn't be quite savage on this. I was right in my predictions, and have been consistently right on this, while many of the big name "stars" have got it wrong and consistently wrong.
And for all the torrent of words, most of the pundits still don't understand what they are seeing. This deal only buys time for the "colleagues" to settle their new treaty, formalising economic governance of the eurozone, and giving the ECB the tools it needs to manage the currency.
And a reason why being right this time this actually matters is because these same big names will bounce back, without so much as a blush, continuing to scatter errors in our path. And, because the media and its political handmaidens are driven by prestige and agendas rather than by hard, rational analysis based on study and experience, they will continue to get a hearing.
In the coming months and years, we are going to have to make some difficult decisions and judgement calls on the referendum campaign, in part based on analysis of the intentions of EU players and their allies. And, in trying to reach the right decisions, the track records and capabilities of the analysts should be borne in mind.
You can have prestige and big-name reassurance. Or you can have cold, hard and often accurate analysis. But you are rarely going to get the complete package under one roof.
