When Josef Joffe, then foreign editor of the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote a 4,000-word essay in December 1997 attacking the planned formation of the European single currency, he published it first in English, in the New York Review of Books. “Never in the history of democracy have so few debated so little about so momentous a transformation in the lives of men and women,” noted Mr Joffe. As if to confirm his point, the article appeared in an abridged German translation in the Süddeutsche Zeitung more than a month later, unobtrusively buried in a weekend supplement.
1997年12月，时任德国日报《南德意志报》(Süddeutsche Zeitung)驻外编辑的约瑟夫•约费(Josef Joffe)写了一篇4000词的文章来抨击计划中的欧洲单一货币的创建。他这篇用英文撰写的文章最初发表在《纽约书评》(New York Review of Books)上。约费说：“对于一个人们生活中如此重大的变革，几乎没有人为此辩论一番，这在民主的历史上是前所未有的。”似乎是为了强调自己的观点，一个多月后，该文的德文节译版在《南德意志报》上发表——但不起眼的藏在一份周末增刊里。