European Voice looks at the humiliation of the Eurozone if Greece has to go to the IMF for help with its uneconomic economy, and the different schemes being cooked up by other EU members to try to manage the problem:

There is mounting concern in Frankfurt, Brussels and in other eurozone capitals that, if the crisis is handled badly, contagion might spread from Greece to create financing difficulties for some other member countries of the eurozone, notably Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy.

The discussions are complicated by the Maastricht treaty’s “no bail-out” clause for eurozone members. The treaty prohibits the direct financing of public entities’ deficits by national central banks or the European Central Bank.

But, according to an EU official, the “no bail-out” clause might be side-stepped if the crisis was dealt with inter-governmentally within the Eurogroup. The Eurogroup – the gathering of finance ministers of the eurozone – is now recognised as an official EU institution under the Lisbon treaty

It all boils down to a simple proposition. Someone has to lend Greece money on a significant scale, knowing that Greece needs this money because it has shown itself to be highly incompetent at running its own affairs.

So the lent money too will be at risk, even with ‘conditions’. Who wants to subsidise the likelihood of Greece behaving responsibly, or not? Will EU taxpayers in those other member states which have run their affairs sensibly want to see their savings at risk in that part of the continent?

And what if Greece won’t or just can’t meet the promised conditions?

Quite interesting.

Here, by the way, is a banal example of a Greek Gift sacrifice in chess – where taking the proffered ‘gift’ leads to rapid disaster.