With the finalising of the Greek bailout, the signing of the fiscal pact, the acceptance of massive losses by investors in Greek bonds and the triggering of the credit default swaps, Euroland survives to fight another day. This is, of course, not the end of the story. It is a kind of Dunkirk moment. Catastrophe averted, but the underlying problems of massive sovereign debt, excessive regulation, lack of growth and the absence of democratic control over economic policy are all still there.

Yet the Euro can now survive, not because it has collectively solved its problems, but because Germany has taken control. There is now governance of the currency and the currency has a government. It is not in Brussels or Strasbourg or even Frankfurt. It is in Berlin. It is a democratic government, but only Germans can vote.

This is an extraordinary outcome to a predictable problem. Germany alone in the eurozone profits significantly from the single currency because only Germany has the industrial efficiency to exploit the low value of the euro compared with the much harder deutschmark of before. This gives Germany the profit to help it fund the faltering spendthrift economies of the south as well as the power to enforce its will.

For how long the eurozone continues under German control depends on the German people. If they get tired of paying the bills and lose sight of the benefits to their own economy of the undervalued (for them) currency, the euro will bust apart. At least the mystery is over. In future we all know who will decide.

The rest of Europe will just have to knuckle down. This is the price they pay for failing to resolve issues at the start. The failure to organise an effective democratic structure to unify economic policy in the euro area produced a vacuum.  Germany has marched in, to fill it. We seem to have been here before.