Tag Archives: language

On Dijsselbloem

Why everyone should calm down – and be careful when speaking in their second language

Jeroen Dijsselboem
Jeroen Dijsselboem

The last two days the European media (and markets) were in a state of shock. Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem had supposedly said in an interview with the Financial Times and Reuters that the Cyprus bail-in strategy could be a template for resolving banking crises in the future. The result was a truly Europeanized response.

There seemed to be a great consensus that Dijsselbloem was disquieting the markets, that he is unfit for the job, while he was even labeled as ‘chaos crisis manager’. The Süddeutsche Zeitung noted that the inexperienced, agricultural economist Dijsselbloem should ‘choose his words’ wiser.

Dijsselbloem subsequently published a short statement saying:

Cyprus is a specific case with exceptional challenges which required the bail-in measures we have agreed upon yesterday. Macro-economic adjustment programmes are tailor-made to the situation of the country concerned and no models or templates are used.

Four brief points on this whole charade are in order. Continue reading On Dijsselbloem