The housemaid's baby

Where the European Project, the whole damn thing from the Coal and Steel Community to the euro, comes a cropper is with democracy. You may remember the absurdly self-important José Manuel Barroso saying he didn't want any lessons in democracy. He said that Europe consisted of 27 democracies, but he didn't say that Europe was itself a democracy: the assembled journalists would have been rolling in the aisles clutching their sides.

Now Greece, for some the birthplace of democracy, has elected a government, supposedly from parties in favour of the bailout (in fact largely from the ones which agreed it) and they, trying to be as inclusive as possible, have said they want just a little renegotiation of the bailout, not a complete one. A housemaid's baby of a renegotiation. An extra two years.

Now in my view Merkel might have agreed to this, sent down a few beancounters (the word Bohnenzaehler really does need to be invented for this particularly Euro-use) and imposed a few more minor conditions. But she has come up against the great European bugbear. What, the Germans are now asking, if a future Greek government didn't want to agree to the terms? What if the Greeks, those pernicious long-standing democrats, voted for someone the Germans didn't like?

And it seems quite possible. The Greek system says that the party which gets most votes gets first shout at forming a government. So what has happened is that whilst the majority voted for parties against the bailout, Samaras has nobbled the mildest of these and got it to agree to the housemaid's baby. But Tzipras and Syriza will not be silent in the days to come and it is not impossible that it could force Samaras' government out of office. By the way when I say they were against the bailout, they weren't against receiving the money, oh no, it was the conditions attaching to it which they opposed.

So is Merkel prepared to take the risk? Expect another fudge.