Yesterday's Guardian characterizes the Greek prime minister's pledges of radical reductions in the budget deficit as "mythological". Die Zeit on the other hand considers the decision to step in with financial support as already taken, the precise details of the operation being a secondary matter. The Rubicon towards a new European arrangement of common economic and, tacitly, political government has already been crossed. The two points of view are in fact complementary, for it is the Greek government's fuzziness and inability to put in practice its declared intentions that will necessitate the bailout. At any event, if the rapaciousness and incompetence of the Greek ruling classes have served as the instrument for bringing the Europeans face to face with a choice that cannot be avoided, then something supremely good will have come out of the present sorry situation.

The whole issue is at the same time embroiled in the civil war raging within the German ruling coalition, with the Free Democrats being adamantly opposed to any rescue involving German money. It is a "good" thing from the point of view for the bankrupted country ("good", that is, in the immediate sense of not going under straightaway, although whether it will be good in the real sense of leading to a complete overhaul of its feudal structures depends on the strictness of the international supervision)that Westerwelle has drawn the ire of significant segments of the establishment because of his clumsy attacks against the principle of the welfare state. If the person who considers the very idea of social solidarity as equivalent to collectivist "socialism" (like the blockheads of Republican extremism in the US who led the world to the precipice in the first place) is at the same time the chief voice against the Greek plan, then his loss of political standing will also undermine the campaign against the financial rescue.

It remains true, certainly, that the large majority of the German people are also against it -for good reason from their point of view. There is indeed something outrageous in Greeks striking against the extension of the working age to the 63d year, while Germans already must work to the age of 67. If, however, it is explained to the latter that if they do not do it now they will be forced to do it later at a much higher price, public opinion will come around. It is a straightforward choice between a lesser and a greater evil.

In point of fairness, it should be stressed that those clamoring in the streets of Athens do not represent the majority opinion. It is firmly established through repeated surveys that large majorities here also favor a radical restructuring plan, provided that it does not weigh disproportionately upon the middle and lower classes that have been bled dry by the political establishment for years on end but also wipes away the scandalous privileges of the party apparatchiks, the public sector bosses and their parasitical coterie. The rest of us are also going to suffer badly -there is no way around that. But at least we will be able to endure it with some equanimity knowing that the architects of this moral and economic disaster have been shorn of their oppressive feudal privileges (some of them hopefully ending behind bars).