A significant side-issue of the moral hazard involved in the current Greek situation involves Ireland. It is indeed unfair that Ireland, having undertaken significant self-correcting measures, should watch from the sidelines as the Greek elites benefit from their own deliberate delinquency.

But, if one wishes to discuss this from the moral point of view, if Ireland succeeds in reforming itself it will avoid the humiliation of external tutelage that Greece ought to submit to. It will reap the satisfaction of its own virtue, something that will enormously strengthen her claim to belong to the hard core of the European association with equal deciding rights. Whatever the outcome in Greece, on the contrary, that country will be placed in the guard house for a very long period to be watched for recidivism which is highly likely if it is let off easily now.

Ireland, you see, is a serious society and a culture highly self-conscious of its history. The Irish were tyrannized over by the British, but they had the greatness of soul to absorb what is best in the British mentality, namely the spirit of moderation and compromise and a commitment to the common good. These seeds took a long time to sprout, but they bore the fruit that are plainly visible in the northern part of the Gaelic island. That the terrorist affiliated wing of Ulster unionism and the terrorist affiliated wing of republican nationalism would form a common government there, which moreover is committed to overcoming the inevitable hurdles that keep propping up, is a splendid outcome and an inspiration to all civilized people. The Irish are ensconced in the very heart of the European idea.

If the Greek political classes had shown just a tiny fragment of this good sense with respect, let's say, to the problems in Cyprus and the Aegean those situations would have been resolved long ago to the immense benefit of the Greek people themselves who would have thus avoided paying the bloody price for the imbecilic choices of their rulers. But, again, the Irish showed a marvelous capacity of learning from their history.

Modern Greeks like to portray themselves as the paradigmatic "suffering nation" of European history, a stereotype that has been mightily reinforced by the color-blind "anti-imperialism" of the Greek left. But this hagiographic self-image, like every other aspect of official culture here, is based upon a thorough ignorance and/or distortion of the historical record it appeals to. It has no inkling of, and even if it did it would not care a bit about, the martyrdom let's say of the Irish people, let alone that of the Scots or the Poles or -God forbid- the Jews. The well-nigh annihilation of the Irish in the potato famine, for instance, is a non-event as far as the public mind is concerned. Historical injustice, like just about everything else really, is supposed to be the exclusive ownership of the modern Greek "race", thus giving it special claims and privileges vis-a-vis other peoples who must do perpetual penance for the real and imaginary sufferings inflicted on this "saintly nation". This caricature of historicity, primed by the shrill cries of vulgar and venal politicos and pseudo-journalists, is always the last court of appeal.

That the flag of the European union should be burned in the streets of Athens by corpulent farmers, whose huge belly -over which they had laboriously to bend in order to light the match- is due entirely to the subsidies of the European agricultural policy, is just a graphic illustration of this warped way of thinking. Ireland should be proud not to be in this moral bind.

But then again, as Stiglitz argues (and he of course knows better), the Irish austerity measures may not be working. If this is the case, then Ireland has a greater claim to an EU bailout compared to the third digit of the PIGS acronym -which incidentally is the only one rightly associated with that unfortunate animal. Germany, I am afraid, should also in her own interest take that in stride.