Greek prime minister officially asked yesterday the intervention of a joint E.U.-I.M.F. mechanism in order to affront its debt crisis.

The immediate need to borrow more than twenty billions of Euros in the coming months to cope with its budget deficit left Greece alone in front of a rapacious audience of lenders who taxed a country of the eurozone of interest rates mounting the vertiginous heights of 8-10%.

It is certain that the public finance of Greece has for years been the mirror of serious problems which the country was unable to systematically confront.

Tax evasion in extremelly vast dimensions, profound public sector inefficiency and corruption and political parties in power that used public funds to assure reelections trapped Greek economy and society to a recession vicious cycle and created a nasty problem to the new elected socialist government of Mr G. Papandreou.

Recourse to the IMF recipe means that Greeek economy has to go through severe austerity measures. The International Intitution despite the proclamation of Dominique Straus Khan when he received his mandate remain attached to its all-time principles that invariably impose de-inflation strategies id est lower wages, lower pensions, more lay-offs.

Greek economy has the potential to overcome the crisis. Its robust internal market which represent another 40% of its GDP as an unofficial –but very active- gray economy, its remarquable position in one of the most prized tourist zones on earth, its healthy conservative banking system well entrenched in the Balkan countries plus a more and more vast recognition that the country is going through dire if not its darkest times since the fall of the military Junta in 1974 are favorable conditions which can reasonably guaranty the outcome.

What indeed is most alarming in this short Greek drama is probably the farce of the European reaction to the Greek crisis. One more time as previously happened during the Yugoslav wars, Europe realized its tragic weakness.

The first economy on earth ready to promote the European democratic sustainable paradigm to all corners of the world, proud to be able to set the example as the major normative power from the emergent Asia to the old America, found its self nude in the first eurozone crisis.

The default of European policy in the recent Greek debt crisis is probably the event that will determine the European future for the next decade. A narrow minded economic efficiency rationale trying to protect the export surpluses as is the case of Germany cannot be compared to the protection of the huge and immensely profitable internal market which at all costs have to be protected.

The political economy of the European paradigm lacks its true leaders.