While the European crisis seemingly began as an event isolated to Greece, in less than two years it has extended in one way or another to most European countries. Just one month ago, renewed assurances that Europe was finally containing Greece’s impact were met with new credit and funding pressures throughout the continent. Financial markets are thus unsettled by the prospect of yet another Greek financial programme failure that signals that there is no real funding commitment to preserve the euro.
The failure of the Greek programmes has been seen by many as a Greek failure. Until now, few have considered the possibility that it could be a fault with the programmes themselves. Yet, these failures are so stark that in the Greek election on June 17, 2012, none of the candidates proposed keeping the existing programmes in their entirety. Instead, their focus was on bringing about the necessary changes that could help Greece finally resolve its crisis.