For more than a year now, Brussels has been in a self-imposed lockdown. Nothing must be done to frighten the children. The British referendum – that embarrassing and tedious genuflection to democracy – must be safely won; and then they will get their plans out of the drawer and get on with the business of building a federal superstate.

You may have noticed, however, that the euro crisis is far from over, and that the EU remains a gigantic engine of job destruction. Eight years after the disaster began, it is obvious that the problem is structural, not cyclical. In Spain, Portugal and Greece, a whole generation of young people has been sacrificed to the Moloch of the euro – and they are still on the dole. The Greeks are unable to pay their debts; the Italian banks have a €360 billion black hole.

In response, the EU plans “more Europe”, a fiscal and political union, in which Britain would inevitably be involved.

Remember we were told we wouldn’t have to pay for the Greek bail-outs? And then we did? According to the European Commission’s Five Presidents’ Report, which lays out plans to shore up the euro, the Commission wants to have a new European approach to company law, to property rights, to every aspect of employment law. Why? Because if the Germans are to be persuaded to engage in a perpetual bankrolling of the less prosperous regions of the EU, then they want proper Germanic rules to enforce good behaviour. He who pays the piper calls the tune. And Brussels can see only one way to save the euro – and that is to get Germany to pay, and therefore to allow Germany to call the tune.