(26.Juni 2012) Rather like an Olympics Budget, the deficit figure kept rising with each week, as the new government opened more and more worm-cans. First ELSTAT said 7.8%, then 9.8%, then it went to 11%, before finally settling at 13.6%. Only then – some time shortly before Christmas 2009 – did Papandreou talk to Brussels, Paris and Berlin about the possible need for a bailout.

In fact, through her Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, Angela Merkel already know about the Greek deficit lies. Schäuble became Finance Minister shortly after Papandreou came to power. Although Angela Merkel had shafted the wheelchair-bound assassin’s victim on at least two previous occasions, she wanted him now for three reasons: first, as Minister of the Interior, he had an excellent head for secrecy and covert operations. Second, he was hugely in favour of EU political union. And third, he didn’t have the scruples of his SPD predecessor, Peer Steinbrück