Forecasts are forecasts are forecasts. It does not come as as surprise that the European Commission slashed its previous growth forecast by another notch or so. Only six months ago the Eurozone was supposed to grow on an annual base by 1.7%. Today this projection has been downgraded to 1.1%. There Commission admits that the recovery is weak in comparison to other advanced economies and explains this weakness by (i) deleveraging pressures, (ii) incomplete adjustments of macroeconomic imbalances,  and (iii) the slow pace of structural and institutional reform. Moreover, the hint to improved growth prospects in Ireland and Malta tries to suggest that austerity is not playing a role at all for the meagre forecast. The report mentions ‘disinflation’ but does not see it as a intrinsic part of the growth problem. Nothing new from Brussels then? Not in the forecast, at least, but maybe in the Juncker plan to mobilize an overall amount of €300 billion for a EU-wide public investment program? Much fuss has been made out of the idea that the Commission may actually start what national governments reject to undertake: investing money into infrastructure and thus to deliberately increase effective demand in the EU. The plan is not even a plan, though, but resembles more of an vague intention. First, Juncker talked about €300 billion over a period of three years. The annual injection would be mild, to say the best. Second, he was never talking about public money but a private-public investment scheme where the private sector was supposed to defrost some of its excess savings. Third, the idea is plagued with institutional-political troubles that it may, if at all, come into effect when the next step towards ‘Japanization’ has been made.