The French and German leaders agreed upon the Greek aids. The French President Sarkozy was stating something of setting the deadline for the aid before September. The German Chancellor Merkel has said that the German banks and the investors must pay their share on this crisis -- voluntarily.
While the fear of the Greek default crisis eased, the nation is in turmoil. The financial package requires austerity measures such as cutting the budget, selling the national assets by $70 billion, and cutting 150,000 personnels out of 700,000 public sector workers. The austerity measures caused the civil riots on the street in Greece and there has been casualties. The Greek government appointed a new Financial Minister to the former Defense Minister Evangelos Venizelos, a political rival of the Prime Minister George Papandreou.
The investments to Greece are prompted by its high interests. Then this again is a case with Iceland, which defaulted a few years ago. The Iceland people refused to pour their tax money on the repayments to the investors. The British and Dutch banks sued the nation while the Iceland citizens voted not to pay in a national referendum. Iceland is not a member of EU. After the debt crisis, the government applied for its membership.
The credit that is for the nation, I believe, should not be confused with that of private companies. A nation or its government is a public institute. The interests should have been regulated for the sake of keeping Euro credible. If the public institute for the public -- or the people, should be there for the people, not for the investors. Killing Greek people by investments, running them by their greed and the investors greed and neglect, is a poor management on the EU's side.
While this agreements show the EU's superb management skills for the integration of the region, more difficult tasks ahead to calm the investors' fear, obtaining the money from IMF, ECB, and from others, and setting the austerity measures in Greece. Let us hope the sensible measures would be taken by the leaders, the investors, and the people in EU and in Greece.