It has been an interesting week, which started with the vote in the Greek parliament in the expectation that the eurozone ministers (the so-called Eurogroup) would meet on the Wednesday to approve the terms of the bailout.
The next day, though, it started to come clear that Merkel was blocking settlement, with the Germans wanting Greece out of the euro. Not least was the relative triviality of the funding gap, which was to become the battlefield. By Tuesday, it was becoming more widely known that there wasn't going to be an immediate decision, and that Greece was being pushed towards the exit.
Wednesday thus saw a conference call instead of the planned meeting, and an appreciation that there were serious tensions building up, with Germany, Finland and Holland pushing for the Greek to withdraw from the euro.
Then, by Thursday, it was out in the open, with Greece's finance minister Evangelos Venizelos making a public complaint that some eurozone countries no longer wanted Greece in the single currency. That, of course, left Merkel in a difficult position, having to deny the very thing that she and her colleagues were trying to achieve. Nevertheless, by the last working day of the week, the situation looks close to final, although there is an extraordinary variance in the tenor of press reports.
By now, there is a fightback going on, with the forces of darkness rallying to keep Greece in the Europe, ending up with the media hopelessly misreading the position, and still indulging in anti-German rhetoric, even though the Germans have made their position clear.
And all of this brings us back to Sunday, with Booker looking back over the week, in his column, to report on how "the European project is splitting apart at the very core".
Behind all the spin, smoke and fury of recent days, we see unfolding the greatest crisis in the history of the "European project", he writes. "What is emerging is a fundamental split which threatens to inflict on it by far the most serious reverse in its 62-year history".
The thesis is nothing new to readers of this blog, but – owing to the inadequacies of the media in general – it will come as news to many of Booker's readers. Thus, a wider audience will get a glimmering of what is really going on, ready for the message to be drowned out in the torrent of ignorance that will assail us in the coming week.
For what it is worth, my guess is that, under enormous pressure and very reluctantly, Germany will approve the bailout at the Eurogroup meeting tomorrow, only then to create further hurdles which Greece will be required to surmount. And thus the dance will go on.
"What is so shockingly evident as you walk around Athens are the awful parallels between the war-time era and today. The soup kitchens, the beggars, the pensioners picking up discarded vegetables after street markets close, the homeless scavenging for food in bins … "
"There are so many similarities between these periods", says researcher Eleni Nikolaidou. "Of course, it was the Germans then, and once again the Germans are the dominant figures in our crisis now".
Greeks, we are then told by Mail writer Ian Birrell, "seem torn between outrage at their venal politicians, anxiety over the future and the fierce anger they direct at Germany for demanding tough measures as the price of a European Union bailout to allow their country to continue to function".
The imposition of the latest package of conditions by the German-dominated EU and International Monetary Fund, we are informed, provoked riots last weekend, while newspapers made ugly references to the Nazis, and politicians talked of living under a "German jackboot" as Europe's festering wounds burst open.
Shocked you are supposed to be, especially at the litany of hardships which the people of Greece are suffering. But, hang on a minute! Terrible though they might be, isn't this situation exactly whatthe Mail wanted (see above)?
"We earnestly hope EU leaders will find a solution that saves the euro from disorderly collapse", the paper said at the end of October last year. "Inevitably", it then noted, "we believe, this will mean re-writing the EU constitution yet again, to bring the countries of the Eurozone under a single economic government, with more uniform tax and spending policies — almost certainly to be dictated by Germany".
However, there is an alternative - for Greece to quit the euro. But that is precisely what The Maildoesn't want. It would sooner Greece remained in the euro, as indeed it is keen to see Britainremain in the EU. But then we are invited to decry the effects of the very policies that the paper endorses, while at the same time marking Germany down as the villain – the very country that wants Greece out of the euro.
Is it any wonder that people are confused?
With Germanophobia never far from the surface in European politics, Greek politicians and their media have been shamelessly playing the "Nazi" card, to the applause of commentators throughout the world. Too many people – many of whom should know better - have been only too happy to believe the narrative of a the German "steamroller" pitched against the hapless Greek people.
Bizarrely, even though it has emerged that the German solution to the current crisis is for Greece to leave the euro, and many of those self-same commentators argue for exactly the same outcome, Merkel gets a swastika armband and now finance minister Schäuble is dressed in an SS uniform.
It is, of course, not part of the media narrative to cast events in any other way, the net effect being to play to the propaganda of the EU commission and their Greek puppets, reinforcing the pressure on Germany to finance the bailout, and keep the euro intact.
At last though, it does seem as if the Germans have finally had enough, today's Bild running a story headlined: "Throw the Greeks finally out of the euro", complaining that, "We pay and they insult us" (pictured above).
But, indicating just how far the adrift is the Nazi rhetoric – playing into the hands of the EU - the paper goes on to note that all Greek politicians want to stay in the euro, to which effect they are forcing the pace on harsh austerity measures. It is the German politicians who are saying that the "stubborn Greeks" have no future with the euro.
Thus in a cross-party alliance, we see Klaus-Peter Willsch of the CDU saying: "We must stop the tragedy. Greece in the Euro zone is no prospect of economic recovery", with Frank Schaeffler (FDP) warning that the protests might trigger a civil war.
It is then Veronika Bellmann (CDU) who says that everything the critics have predicted has occurred. She adds: "the ailing administration, the corrupt tax system and an unfit and unwilling political class are not a basis for structural reforms". And now, she warns, this is beginning even "to shake the democratic nature of the country".
What thus comes over is the very opposite of the legend we are being offered, with German politicians genuinely concerned at the fate of Greece, saying exactly the same things that British eurosceptics have been urging. Nor is this a question of throwing Greece to the wolves. CSU General Secretary Alexander Dobrindt, warns that: "We must prepare ourselves for the event that Greece does not implement the promised reforms".
But, far from being the heartless "Nazi invader" intent on dominating the country, he says that there must be a "contingency plan" for when Greece "escapes" from the euro, with the preparation of "an EU-Marshall Plan for the redevelopment of Greece".
All of this points to one inescapable conclusion: the Germans are the best friends the Greek people have right now. The people are being sold down the river by their own corrupt politicians, with the support (and instruction) of the EU commission and their "troika", whose only concern is the integrity of the euro, irrespective of the pain it causes.
When we look at the media at large, therefore, we have to say that never in the field of euro-reporting have so many got it so plain wrong. But then we see how useless they have become, and cannot be at all surprised.
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