As the eurozone’s dominant economy, Germany would be expected to take the lead in marshalling financial support for a Greek bail-out. There are fears the crisis could spread to other eurozone states with big deficits such as Spain and Portugal.
“We’ve had to face up to the fact that what is now a Greek problem could turn into a European one,” the official said.
”We’re thinking about what we should do if the crisis spills from Greece into other euro countries. So it’s more about finding firewalls, containing the problem, than principally about helping the Greeks.” He added there were ”no concrete plans” as yet.
Herein is the Achilles’ heel of the “Eurozone.” If a member country’s government becomes financially insolvent, it affects the whole. Other countries will only start to bail out other countries if they think its in their own national self-interest. The moment it no longer is in the national self-interest of the economic bulwarks of the “Eurozone,” the system collapses because it becomes a case of “all politics is local.”
The Eurozone will go the way of Bretton Woods. The disparity in economies/societies/political systems makes the linkage too difficult to maintain. Imagine tethering a Yugo to a Maserati. Something’s going to give and it won’t be pretty.