That was 2010, this was 2012:

Basically, Giegold had to put in the obligatory

We Greens are for binding limits on public debt and for a sharper Stability and Growth Pact.

whereas Canfin said

The stability pact is essentially an austerity pact, because its recessionary effects are not offset by any other European policy in the context of a "package".

The diary we're discussing here shows that Cohn-Bendit is more at home with the German than the French Greens when it comes to economics. It doesn't make him or Giegold bad people.

A year ago, out of political realism, the Greens (at least the German Greens) had conceded defeat to the austerians. Has that changed?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman