In EU circles, ‘hard graft’ refers to one’s ability to lobby, negotiate and build alliances.

I learned this lately when arguing against allowing Greece to revisit its bailout terms.

Reckoned as a small country in the eurozone, Greece doesn’t stand much of a chance anyway, it was iterated to me by someone with plenty of EU awareness.

That’s another reason, I concluded to myself, why the government should persist in treating our macroeconomic performance as top priority. And why everyone should rejoice when, for instance, we receive such a glowing economic forecast as that relayed in the latest winter report of European Commission: “robust growth outlook”, a shift from its ‘corrective’ to its ‘preventative’ arm and other positives.