New report highlights EU's 'heroes and villains', The Parliament.com, 10 March 2008

It gives an overall performance rating of just C-plus and the message is that member states "must do better".

Barroso said, "Most parents do not want their child coming home with a C-plus but I accept that countries must do better.

"The economic performance of member states has been uneven and some have shown more commitment to economic reform than others.

"Indeed, over the last 12 months there has been evidence of reform fatigue."

You'll think I'm obsessively critical, but is this infantilisation the level we should expect from political leaders and serious analysts? (I'm including the "heroes and villains" bit in this)?

But that's exactly what they called it; I've got a hard copy of that "pamphlet" which was distributed around at the launch (I attended the launch) -- it contains the report known as

The Lisbon Scorecard VIII Is Europe ready for an economic storm