EUphemisms

Economist
June 24, 2011

Take the bail-out of Greece. Countries of the euro area say that, in order to agree to a second Greek rescue, they must first obtain the “voluntary” participation of Greece’s private creditors in taking up new bonds when current ones are paid out. At a time when markets see a Greek default as a near-certainty, most sensible investors, unless offered something better, would gratefully collect their pay-out and take their money elsewhere. But “voluntary”, in this case, seems to mean anything short of overt torture: how far will governments be able to twist the arms of the bankers without them screaming?

The stretching of “voluntary” is closely connected with the distortion of “independent”.

Take today’s fraught appointment of Mario Draghi as the new president of the European Central Bank, replacing Jean-Claude Trichet. There was never any doubt that Mr Draghi, the straight-talking Italian central banker, would be the chosen successor. But his formal appointment risked being delayed—so giving yet another signal of European disunity at a time of financial crisis—by a spat between France and Italy.

More