Amidst a hand-wringing defence of the indefensible, The New Statesman propagated a common myth thus: “The European Union has indeed brought peace and prosperity to the people of Europe, . . .”

Indeed, it never did. The institution that arguably brought peace and truly brought prosperity to Europe was the E.E.C. Colloquially, ‘it was a different type of animal,’ say, the cow in the barn as opposed to the wolf at the door (now which institution might symbolize?).

And talking about animals, we never had a single ‘PIGS’ during the E.E.C.’s years, did we? Neither were there so many ailing and failing economies nor were such degrading epithets flung around. In fact, the defamed nations are not ‘PIGS;’ they are Old Testament ‘scapegoats.’ Greece is but the latest one.

So much for the animal metaphors.

The realist may say that the E.E.C.’s very success is the reason that it had to be done away with but in all likelihood it was only a decoy and bridge to the Frankenstein’s Monster that is the EU. Haven’t we seen it elsewhere? Recall what fair and balanced council preceded the extra-jurisdictional W.T.O. That was now-defunct GATT.

So there we are.The EU is an encore performance!And it is an open secret that there is to be a final sequel, the supra-national entity ‘Europa.’

The E.E.C., from a pre-Thatcherite socialist cum nationalist era, was steered in the main by anonymous technocrats and economists who have long since been shunted aside.In contrast, predatory bankers and unelected commissioners pull the EU’s strings, just as they pull the strings of the various mercenary viceroys posing as heads of state.

As for that fading feel-good factor surrounding the European Coercion, oops!, we mean the ‘European Union,’ it is probably a residual effect from the old E.E.C. That is, E.E.C. goodwill has been spilling over into the EU (where most of it evaporates).

If this tract sounds anti-EU, it is meant to be.However, this Eurosceptic is a Europhile: for to hate the EU means to love ‘Beautiful Europe,’ as the song calls it.Those who love now-endangered Beautiful Europe should beware of a new three-way Axis that threatens The Continent: Berlin-Brussels-Strasbourg.

(Turn over this counterfeit EU-Axis trinket and on the back edge you’ll read ‘Made in Maastricht’ in small letters.Too bad it doesn’t also have a ‘Made disclosure.)

Eurosceptics know that it will be The Grapes of Wrath, European varietals.Already Greece’s baby Joads are dying while but of course the reptilian Merkelians feast on caviar.

Time to read a new (all-too obvious) meaning into a certain play. We mean that, ah, ‘Greek Tragedy,’ Medea. Now playing in Athens with a fresh twist: the role of the eponymous princess-sorceress is taken by a male, the chameleonic thespian Alexis Tsipras.

You know how that play ends.

P.S. This just in:Duchess-Viceroy Angela Merkel has retorted to a courtier, “Then let them eat caviar!”

You know how play ends too.