This Blog has been outspoken in its criticism of Germany and with good cause. Now it is time to be blunt with the Greeks. You are demanding of your government both an end to austerity, while at the same time you insist on staying in the Euro. You can have one or the other but you cannot have both.
The latest bailout saga is widely regarded by most commentators with a head for figures and almost every economist there is, as well as the ECB and the IMF, as unworkable and certain to fail. These stark assessments are now so powerful that even the Germans are beginning to have second thoughts about the way ahead. Negotiations are about to begin for a new bailout for the medium term. Germany will eventually have to bow to the international pressure and allow a significant write down/ extension to Greek debt, but it is now quite possible the price will be a controlled Greek exit.
The plain fact is that for whatever reason, Germany now controls the Euro. If the Eurozone pools more sovereignty in order to crate a more credible governance structure for this blighted currency, it will be to a German plan which will increase German power. Greece can never meet the reform standards set by Germany without destroying the soul of the cradle of civilisation. Greeks are as they are because that is what Greece is. By the same token Germans are Germans. The two economic, social and cultural patterns cannot be reconciled. They are complementary in many ways, but only at arms length.
Greeks must therefore prepare to become like Britain, which has its own currency but is willing to trade.The alternative is for Greeks to become, in effect, Germans. It may not look like that now, but that is where it is headed.