As Roger's recent post has suffered from thread drift, here's what might be (a) a sobering thought or (b) more of the same:
"Greece will be unable to find the €1.6bn (£1.1bn) sum it is due to hand the International Monetary Fund (IMF) next month, one of the country’s ministers has admitted." (Telegraph)
If Nikos Voutsis, Interior Minister, is correct, it will be interesting to see how much further the European Central Bank and the others involved will go to prevent Greece's departure, having already compromised considerably.
It all exposes a fundamental problem with the EU: the "hard-working" northern Europeans versus the "relaxed" southerners. A close economic union does actually depend on a shared philosophy and culture, never mind what would happen in an ever-closer political union.
Whatever the UK does, the Franco-German "European project/dream" of the United States of Europe looks like a long way off realisation, unless certain present members drop out.
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