“Whatever it takes” is not a bad motto for the fight to save the eurozone. And the same goes for the new European stability fund, which fills a yawning gap in the institutional fabric of the eurozone. But for this to work, we need clarity about which fights to fight and which instability to stabilise. And this is where the proposed reforms are likely to fail.

When I heard Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the eurogroup of finance ministers, talk about a globally organised attack on the euro, I realised that the game was probably up. The reforms, desirable as they may be, are probably too late. Europe’s leaders are not solving the problem, they are fighting a public relations war. Their target is not economic imbalances, but speculators: hedge funds, investment banks, bond market vigilantes and, in particular, those ominous Anglo-Saxon rating agencies. “Whatever it takes” means that the European Union will set up a European rating agency, funded by public money and subject to European regulation.

Their populism has spun out of control. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, still has difficulty in reining in the anti-Greek bigotry she unleashed in Germany during the early stages of the crisis. It seemed the politically expedient thing to do at the time.