EMU går i graven.

Att byta valuta och få skulden nedskriven löser inte detta problem.

Därför är jag idag inte lika angelägen om en anslutning till euron som förr utan tvärtom skeptisk p g a av de mer realpolitiska faktorer och inte främst de penningpolitiska.

European officials are insisting any new Greek bail-out programme specifically earmark funds to pay off remaining holders of Greek debt, giving lenders the freedom to withhold aid to Athens without risking a messy default that could reignite panic in financial markets.
Under a new Franco-German plan that senior European officials said is likely to be included in a new Greek rescue, eurozone officials would create an escrow account to accept new bail-out funding instead of paying it all directly to Athens as in the past.

The new fund would then ensure bondholders are paid off, while additional cash to run the Greek government could still be withheld if Athens did not live up to tough new reform demands.
A senior French official said the plan, which has backing from the European Commission in Brussels as well as several other eurozone countries, was a way of “removing the Damocles sword of default” while keeping pressure on Athens to reform.

The idea of prioritising debt payments was included in a controversial German proposal circulated to eurozone finance ministry officials last month, which also called for a “budget commissioner” with veto authority over Greek spending decisions.

Eurozone officials said they believed the escrow account would give European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders strong control over Greece’s use of bail-out funds without stripping Athens of its budgetary sovereignty.

“This is a better idea than the proposal of a debt commissar,” said the senior French official. “It is more acceptable.”

Although the idea originated in Berlin, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, embraced it during a news conference with his German counterpart, Angela Merkel, following a joint cabinet meeting between the two governments in Paris. Ms Merkel also signalled her support, saying it would ensure “this money will be reliably accessible”.

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.


"---In 2001, Goldman's financial alchemists formulated a scheme to allow the Greek government to hide the extent of its rising debt from the public and the European Community's budget overseers. Under this diabolical deal, Goldman funneled new capital from super-wealthy investors into the government's coffers.

Fine. Not so fine, though, is that, in exchange, Greek officials secretly agreed that the investors would get 20 years' worth of the annual revenue generated by such public assets as Greece's airports. For its part, Goldman pocketed $300 million in fees paid by the country's unwitting taxpayers.

The financial giant dubbed its airport scheme "Aeolus," after the ancient Greek god of the wind -- and, sure enough, any long-term financial benefit for Greece was soon gone with the wind. By hiding the fact that the government's future revenues had been consigned to secret investors, Goldman bankers made the country's balance sheet look much rosier than it was, allowing Greek officials to keep spending like there was no tomorrow. Last month, however, tomorrow arrived. Greece's crushing debt has exploded into a full-blown crisis, with its leaders disgraced and the country on the precipice of the unthinkable: the default of a sovereign nation.---"