In a bold ripost to BM, the decision to put Jacques Santer in charge of fundraising for the EU's new bailout fund seems almost poetic. Or perhaps just honest.

The bailout fund has been endowed with the slightly tortuous appellation "Special Purpose Investment Vehicle". Or SPIV.

Jacques Santer: a petty bureaucrat of questionable authority.

Spiv: a petty criminal specializing in goods of questionable authenticity... offered at a bargain price.

It's as if they want the bond traders to know...

BM

Any clues how the European electronic identity interoperability platform is known?

Not that you should care.

Something chewy and literal such as the EEIIP?

Or perhaps they'll play with the wording in order to get a better acronym, such as EPID?

Or get consultants in to force something catchier based around 'Electronic ID in the European Economic Area' to get EIDEEA?

Nope, it is, of course, 'STORK', which, according to a recent EU parliamentary Q&A stands for:

Secure idenTity acrOss boRders linKed.

That's right, it's Aussie-rules acronyms, a no-holds-barred, free-jazz improvisational scrabble-bag naming procedure.

As the Sex Pistols might have had it: it's Anacronymy in the U.I. (eUropean unIon).

At least the unfortunately named CLONG (comité de liaison des organisations non-gouvernementales) and RAPEX (Rapid Exchange) have a semblance of a logic behind their monikers.

These folks clearly don't know their Across-Region Systems for Electronic Security from their Electronic Linked Border Operations Web Solutions...

Brussels is reeling after it transpired last week that EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso missed a chance to blurt something inconsequential about a thing that has happened.

Bozo is not usually shy to offer his congratulations or commiserations, even in issues with only a tenunous link to EU matters (see 'Monster passim).

Why, then, were there no words of praise for Europe's table-football teams, after Belgium, Germany and a host of other glorious EU states blew away the rest of the world in the 2012 world cup last week?

Surely this was an open goal to 'warmly congratulate' them on their successes, and take some credit for the 'European spirit of teamwork' that has 'propelled the EU despite world wars and crises to where it is today' (still teetering on the western extreme of the Eurasian tectonic plate).

Note to Bozo's people: The 2012 Rock Paper Scissors World Championship is in November, plenty of time to prepare a congratulatory missive in advance should Europe put in a good performance.

BM

(thanks to contributor cheesywotsit for this one)

The European Parliament, it seems, has run out of policy responses to the debt crisis.

Bailout funds, sovereign debt relief, and euro reform efforts appear to have been exhausted, leaving MEPs putting their heads between their legs and hoping for the best.

Under the rubric of what the parliament laughingly calls 'news' on its website, its inaugural headline of 2012 is a 'New Year's Wish for a successful resolution of the Euro crisis.'

'Monster looks forward to this setting a trend in EU decision-making:

'EU to ban black cats'

'Brussels announces safety measures to prevent walking under ladders'

'Barnier's rabbit's foot to trigger banking-sector stability'

To play us out, it's the Everly Brothers' overlooked ballad, 'Wishing Won't Make It So'

Good luck for 2012...

BM

'You wake one day

To clouds of grey

The rain it soon appears

You close your eyes

Try to visualise

A day that's bright and clear

[...]

But wishing won't make it so

I proved it long ago'