EU Commission chief, Jean-Claude Junker, held a press conference today in which he claimed that Greece’s vicious EU overlords never demanded that Greece’s Syriza government cut wages and pensions.

In fact, he claimed the lenders were on the verge of offering debt relief when Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM,  “betrayed” them by calling a referendum.

The Guardian reporters producing its live feed about Greece were stunned and reported Junker’s whoppers appropriately.

The BBC even reported accurately that Junker said “no wage cuts, no pension cuts” in the proposal Greeks will vote on.

However, the Guardian’s EU editor, Ian Traynor referred very vaguely to Junker being  “disingenuous”– no mention of his whoppers.

That isn’t being “balanced” or “professional”. That is simply letting a liar off the hook.

UPDATE:

Another Guardian article used the “he said she said” formulation to let Junker off the hook:

Juncker accused the Greek prime minister of telling lies about the proposals and said they did not include plans to cut pensions. A government spokesman in Athens accused Juncker of telling a “preposterous lie”.

Interestingly, an article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the right wing Telegraph set the record straight (i.e. exposed Junker):

He denied that the creditors were demanding pension cuts as part of the deal, a claim dismissed a “preposterous lie” by one Greek official. In fact Brussels wants a cut equal to 1pc of GDP by next year, including a phasing out of the low pension supplement, and other indirect measures.

 

 

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