“I should say that, interestingly, the idea that finally broke the deadlock - which had to do with the use of the Fund - came from an idea that I myself put forward.”
The quotation is from Pedro Passos Coelho, the Portuguese Prime Minister speaking immediately after the EU reached an agreement with Greece regarding the possibility of a third bailout. They emphasize the importance of the Portuguese input in disentangling one of the most contentious aspects of the agreement, the establishment of a 50 billion Euros privatization fund. This fund, following the Portuguese proposal, is divided into two: half of it is destined for bank recapitalization and the other half for investment in the Greek economy. Passos Coelho’s sentence soon went viral and became a trending topic in Portugal, despite the fact that very few people spend any time at all analysing the implicit content of such assertions.
