When clients, consumers and constituents believe they are being shortchanged, the present fashion is to direct them towards some section or office where they will be heard and given satisfaction.

Employees there are meant to receive complainants, acquaint themselves with the problems they are meeting and then intervene on their behalf to help find solutions. If they are in the right, their requests will be granted; if not, not. That at least is the theory.

In reality, the system itself is subject to lots of complaints.

Some claim it is a joke; others that it doesn’t get you anywhere; still others argue that even when customer care staff deal seriously with your case, you’ll find they are really impotent and unable to provide remedies.

As criticism it covers practically all areas. However it seems that those members of the public who benefit least from the system are consumers.

One story I was told, related to an attempt to contact the office dealing with consumer complaints. For the first three times they phoned, the line was engaged. Then when they got a reply, it came from an answering machine which requested that they leave their contact details. They did get a return call but it was only to ask them to please send an e-mail detailing what their problem was.

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Political timelines

Could there be still people who believe that it is only in Malta that events and political decisions are structured around specific timelines, according to the pleasantness or otherwise of their significance.

A clear instance of this was provided by the latest agreement in the saga during which the eurozone has kept lending money to Greece, to allow it to pay back money already owed to it from way back.

There is no doubt that Greece needs to have a write-off on a portion of its debt if one day, it is going to revive. The opposition to this is enormous in Germany. Finance minister Schauble is also totally against, but he seems lately to have softened his position. He wants the International Monetary Fund to join the Eurozone in the arrangements with Greece. However the Fund has said that in order to do so, part of the Greek debt commitment would need to be written down.

The agreement reached states that the matter will be thrashed out in 2018.

…By that time, the German federal elections will have been held.

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European football

If trouble does not escalate, any mention of Europe in the coming three weeks should be taken to refer not to the euro or the European Union, but to football.

Trouble could arise, among other reasons, if and when the strikes that have been spreading in France get out of hand.

The unions face a tough choice.

They could seriously embarrass the government and perhaps get what they want with their claims. Their biggest threat is that they would create havoc with the organization of the games by mobilizing further and multiplying the government’s difficulties to breaking point.

There would be a price to pay for such a “successful” outcome. Just like other peoples, the French love their football and will dislike the idea of losing out on it.

Nor will they like the idea of their country being humiliated and blamed for having disrupted games that scores of millions were looking forward to.