The crisis in Europe over Greece - an ongoing saga dating back some five years now - has tended to polarize views. On the one hand, there is much commentary on how the Greeks got into this mess through poor governance and over-borrowing. Let them shape up or ship out, the same view contends. Opposing this is the idea that Europe is being run by the Germans for the Germans and that Germany should do its best to forgive Greek debt. After all, the Wehrmacht was camped in Athens and surrounds 70 years ago and reparations are surely due.

Most likely, a middle way will prevail. Greece will eventually get the loan extensions and additions, be required to reform itself further, with the understanding and guarantee that permanent debt relief will be delivered shortly thereafter. There seems little point in administering medicine that will kill the patient, but this seems to have been the unwitting result of the past five years.

In my view, the European Project needs that country, the one that was the very well-spring and cradle of Western thought, to stay inside. It is never a cost-free exercise, but what, realistically, is the alternative?